Face From The Past
by redneckzombiehunter
Summary: Daryl never expected on seeing her again but then again, who are you gonna run into when the whole world has been overrun by the undead? Now that he has found her, can he hold on to her?* I know my summary sucks but please give the story a chance. Thanks!
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: I don't own the walking dead, amc, or norman reedus (no matter how much i wish i did..=~P ) Oh, and btw, before anybody starts asking, the O/C's name is pronounced (Air-e-l) not like Ariel from the little mermaid. It's my bff's name and i absolutely love it! I hope you enjoy the story, i already have the whole thing written but i want to gage people's reactions before i start turning out three chapters a week. Enjoy!

Chapter One:

Some people who've come in close contact with life and death experiences say that things tend to speed up, others beg to differ: that things slow down. For Arielle Mason, it was a horrible and dizzying concoction of both. Not being able to tear her eyes away from the surrounding tree line for more than a minute, she glanced down the incredibly high dropoff of the cliff in front of her. She couldn't help but wonder if the water below was even more than a few feet deep, not that she had much choice in the matter.

Glancing back over her shoulder, she caught sight of the first of the undead break through the tree line some 30 yards behind her current position on the ledge. Arielle couldn't believe that her afternoon had morphed from tracking a doe a few miles back (surviving on junk food and edible plants and berries in the woods just wasn't cutting it anymore) to coming across a traveling group of the undead a little while ago. She had booked it as fast as she could, managing to drop her beloved bow along the way, the makeshift quiver equipped with many brightly colored arrows, strapped to her thigh, proving to be utterly useless as of this moment. Knowing that her chances of taking the group of undead on were slim to none at this point, Arielle checked the Beretta holstered at her hip, four bullets, not much use against 15 or so dead people. She took one last glance over the drop off before taking a few steps back, mentally preparing herself for the life or death stance against gravity she was about to face. Taking in one deep calming breath and one last look over the beautiful, luscious landscape that was the Georgia countryside, her home for most of her life, Arielle couldn't control the barrage of images that danced through her mind as she raced to the cliff's end.

Her father, his handsome face, calculating and withdrawn, forever hating her very existence for taking his beautiful and precious bride away from him. As much heartache as she suffered by his hands, at this moment, Arielle couldn't bring herself to hate him for his cruelty. Her sisters, Maria and Satine, so beautiful with their long corn silk hair, tall statute and, for the most part, unwillingness to even be around their curse of a younger sister. She recalled one time when she was four years old, her older sisters had dressed her up in their "big girl" clothes and paraded her around the block in a mock model showcase. She knew that they partly did it to embarrass her but she loved every minute of it. Her much older sisters were spending time with her, something that Arielle silently craved, an older female figure in her life to fill the motherless gap. Not to mention that their cruel antics helped thicken her skin and make her into the woman that she was today. Arielle, even in her possible moment of death, forced the unmentionable person that she wanted to think about last out of her head, even now, it caused her too much pain. What, she thought, was to be her last thought went out to the one other person who was most dear to her, the person who had pretty much raised her even though he was only eight years older than her. Her quirky and always reliable older brother, Bobby. Her admirable brother was the only one who never held a grudge against her, instead, he nourished her. He helded out a hand to her when she needed it most. So did..

As her feet cleared the edge of the cliff dropoff, Arielle allowed herself the one last mental image of him, a silent guilty pleasure for herself. Hell, she was probably gonna die anyway, might as well die as she lived. His angular jawline, his deep crystal blue eyes, his dark sandy blonde almost brunette hair. She could almost hear his voice inside of her head as she plummeted towards the cold, icy water below. Her very last thought rang clear through the onslaught of images and memories inside her mind.

"_I'll be with you all soon, whether it be heaven or hell..."_

**TWD~~~~~~~~~~~**

"This oughta be enough." Daryl Dixon mumbled to himself while pulling a bolt out of a large tree, a particularly huge squirrel sticking to the end. Tying his kill to the collection of previously caught around his neck, he cleaned his bolt on a rag that he always carried in his pocket, deciding to head back to the lake that he had seen about a quarter mile back. The young hunter was in desperate need of a canteen refill.

As he approached the water's edge, he pulled a small water canteen from his pack on his back. Daryl knew that he really ought to boil the lake water before consuming it but being that he had nothing to do that task with, not to mention he was too far from camp to go without, he knew that he was shit outta luck. Swishing a sip around in his mouth, Daryl decided that a little of the water wouldn't kill him, at least until he got back to camp.

He stood up straight, stretching his tired muscles, trying to work out the kinks. As he bent to pick up his crossbow by his feet, the sounds of groans and rustling reached his ears. Daryl whipped around, crossbow in his arms and scanned his surroundings, keeping a lookout for possible walkers. Listening carefully, he realized that the noises he was hearing were not coming from the woods around him, the bushes not even bothered by a slight breeze, but were coming from above him, as impossible as that seemed. He turned around in spot, crossbow still tightly clenched in his arms and scanned the cliff lining the lake behind him. Taking in the trees and foliage above him, Daryl decided that now was as good as time as any to high tail it back to camp. As he was turning away from the cliff, a figure caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. Raising his crossbow to get a better aerial view through his lens, he tried to zero in on the figure standing on the protruding cliff's edge, nervousily pacing back and forth. From his current position, Daryl couldn't tell if this person was a walker or a human even though he was leaning towards human, they moved too erratically for a walker.

As if said person could read his mind, Daryl watched as the person paused, only to begin pacing more before pulling a gun out of their waistband. Daryl's grip tightened on his crossbow, waiting with bated breath to see what said individual was planning on doing. He or she checked the gun clip then moved a few paces back from the ledge to only turn back, squatting down slightly before charging full speed back towards the edge.

_'Holy shit, they're going to jump.'_ Daryl's mind yelled. He didn't know exactly how deep the water below was and if it wasn't very deep, this person's life was about to end prematurely.

"What the fuck are ya doin'?" Daryl hollared just before they flung themself off the cliff's edge.

A few seconds ticked by, Daryl was completely stumped as to why this person had leaped from the too high cliff. Before he could dwell on this line of thought any longer, a huge group of walkers appeared out of the tree line, shambling to the cliff's edge before halting. The mindless beings looked around, confused, as if not sure where their next meal had disappeared to. Finally, aftering seeming to sniff out that there was no longer anything for them to chow down on, the group turned around and headed back into the woods. Daryl finally turned his attention back to the water's surface, scanning the calm exterior for either a survivor or a floating body. Not seeing either of the questionable two, he began to pace the lake's shore line, slowly worrying a path into the soft sand and tiny pebbles. After a moment's consideration, Daryl left out a loud huff and began to unlace his hiking boots.

_'What the fuck am __**I**__ doin'?" _He silently asked himself before quickly trudging out into the cool, muddy water. When the murky water was waist deep, he quickly dove under. Resurfacing a moment later, Daryl swam out to the spot where he had seen the person go under. The water seemed pretty deep at this point so he dove under again, and resurfaced, and dove again, and again, and again. He resurfaced, taking in one more deep breath before diving in again, for what he hoped would be the last time.

The cold water was incredibly murky and stung his eyes. Daryl continued to reach around him, searching for any sign of the missing person. Just when he was resigned to stop searching, his right hand connected with what felt like an elbow. He tightened his hold and pulled them upwards. When Daryl resurfaced, he awkwardly gathered the person up into one arm and half swam, half dragged the person to shore. When Daryl laid the person on their back, he quickly realized that said person was a young woman, who wasn't breathing.

"Shit!"

He wasn't familiar with CPR, hadn't bothered with it before, now he wished that he had. Quickly scanning his memory for what he had seen people doing on television shows, Daryl pinched her nose shut and breathed into her mouth, forming a seal around her mouth with his. He repeated this step over and over, afraid that he had gotten to the woman too late. Suddenly, the woman pitched forward, spitting up so much water. She leaned to her side and continued to retch the rest of the lake water out. Daryl lightly patted her back, not knowing what else to do. She rolled onto her back, still coughing to clear her throat. Daryl waited a moment, letting her catch her breath.

"Ya gonna live?" He asked, rubbing his fingertips roughly across his lips and chin, a nervous habit he had developed in childhood. The woman slowly opened her eyes, turning her head to the side to look up at her savior. She opened her mouth to say something but, whatever it was, died on her lips. Eyes widening, she bolted upright and continued to gawk at him, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. Daryl lifted an eyebrow up, confused by the young woman's behavior.

"Catfish got ya tongue?"

The woman lifted one pale hand, brushing her soaked red hair out of her face.

"Daryl?" She whispered, her throat scratchy from coughing up the lake water.

Daryl froze, wondering how the woman in front of him knew his name. Before he could ask her how she knew him, she beat him to the punch.

"It's me, Arielle Mason, Bobby and Satine's little sister.' She exclaimed, crossing her soaked legs into a more comfortable sitting position. 'I know it's been almost 11 years but I don't think I've changed that much."

Daryl sat back on his heels, giving the young woman a full once over now. She had long red hair, reaching down past her shoulders. Since she was sitting down, Daryl estimated her to be about 5'8, 5'9 and about 130 pounds. He couldn't really tell for sure, the green short sleeve t-shirt and light blue jeans she was wearing were baggy on her. Whether from lack of clothes or lack of food, he wasn't sure. Scanning the rest of her, he took in the light dusting of freckles along her cheekbones. Daryl's gaze froze upon reaching her face, more importantly her eyes. He would've recognized that tell tale sign anywhere. All four of the Mason siblings from his hometown had the same unique eye color of green/gray/blue that they inherited from their mother. He remembered the eye color vividly from Satine and Arielle.

Daryl was pulled abruptly out of his memories by a pair of arms pulling him down into a hug, clasping tightly around his neck. Arielle couldn't control the tears that were streaming down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry, I know that you were always so socially awkward but I am just so happy to see you. I haven't seen another breathing person in so long, I was beginning to think it was just me out here. I thought you were dead." She exclaimed, her voice slightly cracking on the last part. She pulled back out of the slightly awkward hug, Daryl had lightly wrapped one arm around her soaked waist. Daryl couldn't help the chuckle that escaped his lips.

"C'mon, Elle,' Daryl drawled, using the nickname he used for her when she was little. 'Do ya seriously think a couple dead people could take down a Dixon? We're made of stronger stock than that."

Arielle smiled at the use of her nickname, accepting his hand to pull herself up into a standing position. She bent to pick up her soaked pack from the ground but paused, Daryl's words floating around in her head.

"We? You mean that Merle's alive?"

Daryl wrapped his crossbow around his shoulders and fixed her with a mock glare.

"Merle's ten times tougher than me, course he ain't dead.' Daryl bent over to pick up her pack, handing it to her. 'Besides, he's gonna be in a right mood when he sees ya." Daryl turned to the direction of the camp but hesitated, turning his attention back to Arielle.

"Ya comin' back to camp, right? Do ya have somewhere else to go?"

Arielle fought back the tightness in her throat before answering.

"Well, it's just me now, so yeah, I guess I'm coming with you." She answered, looking back up at him. She knew that this conversation would come sooner or later but she wasn't prepared to see the pain that rippled across his face as her words sunk in.

"What happened?" He asked quietly, staring at the line of dead squirrels now hanging from his shoulder once more. Arielle didn't particularly feel like skipping down memory lane again but Daryl deserved to know. They were like family to him, too. She crossed her arms over her chest and rubbed her arms, trying to friction some warmth back into them.

"Well, I had stuck around for a few extra weeks after Dad's funeral to visit with family. When the broadcasts started, I didn't think much of it, like another H1N1 scare or something. It was when Bear was bitten and turned a little later, that we realized how badly things had gotten and how quickly they had gotten that way." She paused, taking a steady breath to calm herself.

"We loaded up all our supplies, our ammo and weapons into my Suburban. I guess that's one thing I can thank Dad for, being a survivialist freak, you remember that arsenal he had in the shed? Anyway, before skipping town, we headed by you and Merle's place but it looked as if you two had already taken off. Which is probably a good thing now because I kinda panicked when neither of you answered the door. I busted in your front door, just to make sure you guys were not hurt or anything.' Arielle admitted sheepishly, casting her eyes to the ground. 'Sorry, heat of the moment, shit was hitting the proverbial fan."

Daryl couldn't resist the smirk that crept onto his face at her words.

"Elle, how touchin'..." He drifted off.

"Shut it!" Warning flashed in her eyes and Daryl quickly closed his mouth.

"Anyway, we made the mistake of trying to take the highway to Atlanta, trying to reach that safe zone that was broadcasting on all the stations. The road was overflowing with traffic and... I got.. I got out of the SUV to ask if anybody had heard about the city when..." She had to pause to get her breathing under control along with the tight clenching in her chest.

"A few of those things came out of the woods right by my vehicle, I didn't even see them. I forgot to grab my gun out of the car. Bobby jumped out, yelling to me but I didn't turn around quick enough. The thing knocked me to the ground, Bobby pulled it off of me and put a bullet in its head. He didn't notice the two come up behind him. Maria honked the horn but it was already too late. I tried to pull them off of him but I had hurt my elbow in the fall, I wasn't strong enough... Maria took down the other two and Satine.. she handed me my gun." Arielle paused again, fighting back the lump in her throat, the memories burning behind her eyelids like she was experiencing the horrifying night all over again.

"She grabbed me and pushed me towards him and, uh, she told me 'Your fault, your responsibility'..." She stopped, unable to continue. She plopped down on to the lake bed, needing a moment to collect herself. Daryl squatted down next to her. She quickly rubbed the hot tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Sounds like the Satine I remember, cruel bitch." He whispered quietly.

"I'm sorry, Daryl. If I were you, I'd hate me, too." She whispered, staring blankly across the lake's calm surface. Daryl shook her shoulder roughly.

"Hey, now don't be doin' that. I don't hate ya, shit happens, it wasn' ya fault." He said forcibly. He stared down at the young woman he had known all of her life, wishing that he had something better to say to take away the blame she was shouldering on herself. He also wasn't sure how to broach the next question, not sure if she was gonna start crying or something. Thankfully, he didn't have to.

"We set up camp with some other survivors we came across. At a river some 15, 20 miles west of here. It was normal enough I guess, hunting, fishing, chores, yada yada. Well, one morning a few weeks ago, I went hunting. I had seen some fresh deerprints on the outskirts of camp. Just before I left, Satine asked me if I wanted her to tag along. I refused to let her come, you know she was never very great at tracking and keeping quiet in the woods. I just left her behind, I camped out in the woods that night because it had gotten too dark. I was awoken to the sounds of gunfire, by the time I made it back to camp it was nearly dawn. The entire camp was destroyed, nearly 30 people. Men, women, we even had six children there. I took care of the bodies, salvaged what I could and I've been on my own since."

Daryl continued to watch her. Arielle had pulled her legs to her chest and tucked her knees under her chin, slightly rocking back and forth. Reaching over, Daryl lightly laid his hand upon her shin, giving it a light squeeze. Arielle rolled her head to the side, turning to look up at him.

"Didn't mean to nearly break down in front of you like that. Must be the stress of, well, everything." She whispered, closing her eyes and enjoying the sense of peace that washed over her at having and knowing that Daryl was here and he was okay.

"S'okay. We probably should get goin'. Gonna be dark before ya know it." He replied, standing up and offering her his hand again. She gratefully took it and stood up, their hands still clasped together longer than necessary. Daryl laughed shakily, withdrawing his hand and turned to pick his pack and crossbow up. Arielle took one steady breath before following suit, heading with her friend into more unknown.

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

_**So, **_how'd ya like it? Drop me a review and let me know. I'm not above begging, just so you know.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** Gotta do it. I do not have any copyrights to The Walking Dead, AMC or Norman Reedus *sad face*.

**A/N: **Hope you all enjoyed the first chappie. I was gonna wait on posting this one but I am so excited about the story that I couldn't. I've worked very hard on it, I'm a tad OCD when it comes to anything I write. By the way, it's 2 in the morning, I just got off work, I'm typing the chapter final draft and I'm sucking down Boone's Farm like it's nobody's business. (Hey don't judge me, I'm off tomorrow). So don't get mad if my grammar isn't up to par, so goes the internal and external battles of the writers' life, you write when your muse decides that you need to. I just wanna thank my very first reviewer, eloquent dreams. Thank You! Sorry people, first come, first serve. I was so pumped when I saw my first review. Anyway, enjoy chapter two and please review, they keep me happy!

Chapter Two:

~~~~~~~**TWD~~~~~~~**

They began their trek to camp in virtual silence, only the occasional comment or question from Arielle breaking the silence. Not that she wasn't used to it by now. Daryl Dixon was a man of few words unless he had something to say. They had backtracked a few miles out of the way to retrieve Arielle's supplies that she had stashed in some shrubs near where she had been currently camping as of late. The extra hike had been worth the time in Daryl's opinion. She had a surplus of ammo, canned goods and medical supplies.

"So, what's your group like?" Arielle inquired, ducking down to miss a low hanging branch. Daryl scoffed at the question loudly.

"Bunch of idiots if ya ask me. Most couldn' tell their assholes from a rabbit hole." Laughing, Arielle simply shook her head at his comment.

"So by our widely different opinions on personality traits, they should be an alright bunch since you prefer talking to dead animals more than humans?" Daryl contemplated her question for a moment before answering.

"To ya, yeah, I guess so. Ya always had a higher tolerance for stupidity." There was no way that Arielle could just turn the other cheek at that statement.

"Well, Daryl, that's all thanks to you and your charming brother." Arielle laughed loudly, dodging the rope of dead squirrels that Daryl had chucked at her.

"Oh yea? Think ya funny, huh? Miss Ivy League." Daryl retorted, fetching what was to be dinner off the ground.

"Come on, you use to love my cunning use of intellect."

"Only when it was directed at someone else."

Arielle matched her steps with Daryl again, once she was sure he wasn't planning on having another tantrum and start throwing dead animals around again. They fell back into a comfortable silence, that was one of the things that he had always liked about her. She didn't feel the need to always fill the air with mindless chatter. Well, maybe just the occasional mindless chatter. He took a moment to really look her over from the corner of his eye. It had been almost 11 years since Arielle went off to college, immediately followed up by medical school. She had grown her hair out significantly, he remembered that she had always kept it a lot shorter, usually around chin length. Her face had thinned out too, losing that last bit of pesky baby fat that Arielle had always complained about. His eyes trailed downward, watching her stumble slightly through the high grass. Daryl couldn't help but smirk at the fact that some things never changed. She had always been a pretty decent hunter but stealth had never been one of her strong points. He watched her as she stumbled here and there over small sticks, dips in the ground and sometimes, even her own feet.

"Christ, Elle. How'd ya make it this long out here with those two left feet?" He asked, helping the red-faced girl to her feet. Arielle wiped her hands on her already dirty pants and adjusted the large bag over her shoulder.

"You should know how motivating a hungry pack of dead cannibals chasing you can be and I don't know what you're talking about, I'm like a gazelle." She replied.

"Walkers."

"Excuse me?"

"Well, our group calls 'em 'walkers' or 'geeks'."

"Walkers, huh?' Arielle asked, letting the term roll off her tongue. 'I think that's more fitting. Geeks just reminds me of the heavy mouth breather that sat next to me in English class." Daryl snorted.

"Always had a way with words."

"Well, not everyone speaks Caveman, Mr. Dixon. I'm not complacent with just grunting and nodding when someone is speaking to me."

Daryl just grunted, Arielle sighed.

"Point proven. Are we nearly there?" Arielle felt like they were walking in circles. She would've bet her entire secret stash of chocolate chip cookies that they had passed the same large oak tree with antler rubbings twice already. Then again, this was Daryl. He could be kidnapped, blindfolded, dropped in the middle of the woods and he would still make it back in time for Happy Hour.

"Nearly there."

Arielle's aching feet were thankful for that. After walking for a few moments more, they reached a break in the trees. Daryl led her through the campsite, drawing attention from amongst the other survivors. He led her to a tent a little ways away from the others. Arielle paused outisde the front.

"Is Merle in there?" She whispered. Daryl nodded, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Of course, ya know he's a lazy sumbitch."

Arielle sat her bag down quietly then crept around the side of the tent. She gave the side one really hard kick.

"Merle Dixon! Get your fat, lazy, ugly, good for nothing ass out here! You stupid redneck!" She called, fighting to keep her voice neutral and not break out into laughter. The tent began to shake violently as if it was sitting smack dab in the middle of a wind storm and she could here Merle inside, knocking things over and fighting with the zipper.

"I don't give two shits if ya a woman, nobody talks to me that way!' Merle roared, emerging from the tent, glaring around for the culprit. 'Where the fuck ya at? Ya chicken shit!" Arielle walked quietly up behind him crossing her arms.

"Now, Merle, is that anyway to speak to a lady?" Merle spun around, his hand flying for the knife at his waist. He paused though upon realizing who had called him out.

"Ellie? Well, hot damn girlie! Figured ya were walker food by now." Merle exclaimed, pulling Arielle into a bear hug.

"Aww, Merle. You always know what to say to make a girl's heart melt." Arielle said, pulling away from the huge man. He continued to grin down at her.

"What can I say? Always been a ladies' man." His eyes darted over her shoulder, as if searching for something.

"Where's the rest of the clan?" Arielle's smile faded from her face, she wrapped her arms around herself once more.

"They didn't make it. It's just me now." The smile on Merle's face faded as well.

"Well, that sucks."

"Thanks, Merle. Understatement of the year." She snapped, running a hand through her hair. Arielle knew by experience that Merle could be a grade A douchebag most of the time. Those words coming from him though, were like a heartfelt eulogy.

"Now don' be gettin' ya panties in a bunch. I was hopin' that ya and the others had gotten the hell out of Dodge before the walker shit hit the fan. Ya guys woulda been helluva lot better company than most of the retards round here." Merle waved a hand, signalling the camp.

"Don't bullshit a bullshiter. You were hoping to take another crack at Maria." Arielle said, shaking her head and laughing. A wide smile broke out on his face again.

"Nah, I already ran the transmission out on her long ago. That pussy was more beat up than a fat kid in the school yard." Merle laughed at his own sick joke. Arielle waved her hands out in front of her, trying not to gag.

"First off,' Arielle pointed a finger at herself, 'sister. Second, ewww. I don't need to hear that shit. I wanna keep what little food there is in my stomach there."

A deep, male voice pulled them out of their conversation.

"Excuse me, gentlemen, but are you going to introduce your friend to everybody else?"

Arielle turned her attention to the two people that were standing behind them a few feet away. Her eyes roamed over the two. The man was a little taller than herself with dark hair and brown eyes. He had a slightly awkward shaped nose but other than that, he wasn't bad looking, she could tell just from the way he was standing that he was muscular. She turned her attention to the woman standing next to him. She was only a few inches shorter than the man and was really thin, with very long brunette hair and hazel eyes, which were eyeing Arielle up and down in a curious, observing way. Merle's voice pulled her out of her observation of the two.

"Hello, Officer Shane. Did someone call in a domestic dispute or somethin'? Or was it a noise complaint? We were just welcomin' back a good friend of ours. Do we have to file a request for visitations now?" Merle strutted over to the man. Arielle noticed the dark haired woman tense as Merle stopped right in front of the man. Arielle glanced behind her to Daryl, who was standing poker straight, arms crossed and jaw clenched. She had seen that stance too many times to count. Daryl was waiting for Merle to go too far and have to break up a possible fight. Rolling her eyes at him, Arielle stepped around Merle and held out her hand.

"Arielle Mason."

The man glanced down at her hand questioningly before taking it, returning the civilized gesture.

"I'm Shane Walsh. This here is Lori,' pointing to the woman who smiled at her, 'I guess we're the welcoming committee." Arielle gave them a warm smile.

"Well, given our extenuating circumstances, I'll understand if I don't get an actual party."

Merle huffed loudly behind her before walking away.

"Making friends already, Ellie?" He called out before disappearing into his tent. Daryl had taken a seat on a log outside the tent, cleaning his bolts for his crossbow. Arielle turned her attention back to Shane and Lori.

"Sorry about that. Merle can be moodier than a grizzly bear coming out of hibernation. He can sometimes be a real tool." She explained before jumping slightly at a loud snort that sounded behind Shane. He stepped sideways, revealing a small brunette boy with crystal blue eyes. Arielle automatically felt her heart melt a little, she was such a sucker for blue eyes. The boy took a small step forward, smiling up at her.

"This is my son, Carl." Lori introduced, ruffling her hand through his unkept hair. Arielle knelt down to his eye level, offering her hand.

"I'm Arielle, it's a pleasure to meet you, Carl." She smiled at him when he shook her hand. He continued to stare at her in a slightly awed way.

"I like your name, it's cool." Arielle laughed lightly, she was used to hearing that all the time, well, maybe not so much lately.

"Thanks, I think it's pretty sweet myself." She replied, standing back up to the adults' eye level.

"I also like your hair color. I haven't met many people with that shade of red. Is it real?" He questioned, receiving a light squeeze on his shoulder from his mother.

"Carl, that's rude." She said curtly. Shane lightly patted the boy on the back.

"Yeah, little man. It's like how you're not suppose to ask a woman her age." He joked, receiving his very own stink-eye from Lori. Arielle waved a hand at them, brushing it off.

"Don't worry, it's no biggie and yes, it's real." Arielle smiled at him again before addressing the two adults.

"Shane, Lori, I was kinda hoping on joining Team Survivial of The Fittest here, that is if it's ok? I can be useful, I know how to hunt thanks to Daryl, and I can cook, help out with chores, take patrols. You name it, I'm also pretty good under the hood of a car."

"Ya shouldn' have to ask. It's a free country." Daryl exclaimed, suddenly standing right next to Arielle, successfully eliciting a few choice swear words from her that she wouldn't have normally said in front of Carl. Lori's eyebrows shot up.

"Sorry, been really jumpy these past few weeks." Shane simply nodded in agreement.

"It's understandable. Of course, you can stay. We have a few extra tents in Dale's RV and there are plenty of spots up this way where I can help you pitch it." Shane explained, pointing up to an ancient R.V. where a group of people were standing, staring down the small hill at them.

"She can jus' as easily pick a spot next to me and Merle. If she needs help, which she don't, I'll help her." Daryl said stiffly. Shane's eyes once-overed Daryl, biting the inside of his lip while he did, before turning back to Arielle, silently asking her what she wanted. She couldn't help but find the whole exchange quite hilarious. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Daryl and Merle musn't of made many friends here.

Arielle laughed lightly, trying to diffuse some of the building tension.

"It's fine, Shane. I've been neighbors with these two my whole life. Nothing new there." Shane studied her for a moment before nodding.

"Your call. Nice to meet you, by the way." With that, Shane turned and headed back towards the main part of camp.

Lori, suddenly seeming to realize that she was left standing in so close proximity to Daryl, loudly cleared her throat and took a few steps back.

"Well, I'll go grab you a tent. C'mon, Carl." Lori turned towards the R.V., grabbing the boy's hand and practically dragged him along. The boy shot Arielle one last smile before turning away.

"Seems like ya got an admirer." Daryl said casually before heading over to his tent. He plopped on a log, pulling out his knife at his waist then proceded to skin the first of his kills. Arielle sat next to him and pulled her own knife from her ankle holder, grabbing one of the squirrels to help out.

"A little too young, don't you think?" Arielle asked, slicing into the squirrel with quick movements.

"Not that one." She heard Daryl mutter under his breath which she chose to ignore as if she didn't hear it at all.

"Besides, you know I was always a sucker for older guys." A sharp intake of breath caught her attention.

Tearing her attention from the partially exposed animal, Arielle glanced over to Daryl, who had his finger wrapped in a rag from his back pocket. She placed the animal and knife down then held out her hands.

"Let me see." Daryl quickly pulled his injured hand out of her reach. The action reminded her of a little kid, scared of the sting of alcohol that goes along with cleaning a wound.

"I can take care of myself." He snapped, trying to pull away further from her. Arielle rolled her eyes and grabbed his wrist, pulling it towards her.

"I was nearly finished with my residency when the world ended, remember? Besides, don't be such a baby." She laughed, lightly pulling the rag off his injured index finger. Daryl fixed her with a hard glare, which she ignored. She was immuned to the Dixon Glare of Death. Arielle poked around the gash for a moment before reaching for her duffel bag.

"It's really deep. You're gonna need stitches."

Daryl groaned but kept quiet after that. He merely watched as Arielle went to work on cleaning and stitching up the deep gash. Daryl couldn't keep his eyes from Arielle's face for too long. She was biting on her lower lip and her eyebrows were pulled into a hard line, concentrating on her task. He had to admit to himself, she had fully grown out from the gawky teenager to a very beautiful young woman. It just amazed him how much she seemed to of grown into her own body, he just hadn't seen her since she left for college.

Arielle had gotten an apartment outside of campus, only coming back to visit on holidays. Everytime she had come home to visit, Daryl had always been away on a construction project or she was never around when he would come to see her after finding out that she was in town. It was almost as if she had been avoiding him.

Daryl mentally shook those thoughts away. He really didn't want to start thinking about all that right now but since it seemed that the universe hated him, he wasn't so lucky. Arielle lightly cleared her throat.

"Listen, Daryl, I want to apologize. For what happened the last time we saw each other. I shouldn't of done what I did. I would just blame it on the alcohol but that was only really the catalyst for the whole thing." She watched Daryl out of her perpherial to see his reaction. His eyes darted between her and the ground before coming to rest on the log next to them.

"Ain't nothin'. No point in bringin' it up."

Arielle tied off the stitches and cleaned her hands, shooting Daryl a deathly glare when she finished.

"Jesus, I just wanted to clear the air. Didn't want things uncomfortable between us." She huffed, jumping up off the log before storming away, her shuffling feet kicking up dirt in her wake. Daryl glared after her.

"Well, congrats. Ya did a great job." He called up to her, catching a few peoples' attention in the process.

Arielle stopped short, contemplating turning around and knocking Daryl off the log onto his stupid ass. Deciding to take the high road, Arielle continued walking away to get her tent, sorely tempted to pitch it up with the others instead by the lone Dixon tent.

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

Another one done! I hope that everyone likes what I'm doing with the show's characters. I try to write them as original as possible but with my own twist in there. Even with Daryl and Merle, I wanted to lessen the testosterone down a little especially with Merle. Please leave a review, good or bad, just so I know what everyone is thinking. Later!


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** Once again, I do not own The Walking Dead, AMC, American Idol (don't ask, you'll see), or any of The Walking Dead show's characters, as much as I wouldn't mind having a certain redneck zombie hunter (let me pick up that name I just dropped, it'sa me!) Two chapters in one night? I'm on a roll. Well, not really, just bored. Enjoy Chapter three!

Chapter Three:

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

Not believing the conundrum she found herself currently in, Arielle continued weighing her options. On one hand, she could choose to sit at the main fire ring with the majority of the others including Lori, Shane and Carl. She had been introduced to a few of the others including Glenn, a sweet if not slightly awkward Asian boy. He was very nice but she felt that he was kind of intimiated by her even though she had no idea why. Then there was the two blonde sisters, Andrea and Amy. They seemed friendly enough especially Amy, who was only a few years younger than herself. Andrea appeared a little standoffish, Arielle didn't blame her though, she was after all, a stranger and the new girl in camp.

Her mind returned to her current predicament. On the other hand, it seemed that Merle and Daryl had stayed true to their normal tendencies. The two men had a much smaller fire ring outside of their tent. Arielle knew the pros and cons of each choice. If she sat with the main group, she'd never hear the end of Merle's crap but it would give her the chance to get friendly with the rest of the group. If Arielle sat with the Dixons', given their obvious dislike for well everybody, she knew that there was a chance that she'd be labelled a pariah. Truthfully, she didn't care what other people thought of her but she wasn't completely stupid. In an apocalyptic world, it was a good move to have people in your corner and not ostracize yourself.

She glanced down at the bowl of stew in her hands, slowly getting cold. Deciding on letting shit work itself out, Arielle plopped down on the ground outside her own tent. She swallowed a few spoonfuls before a voice pulled her out of her own musings.

"You don't have to sit over here by yourself." Arielle looked up. An older man, Dale, if her memory was correct, was standing a few feet in front of her. She smiled up at him, the old man had a grandfatherly way about him.

"Thank you very much for the invite. As tempting as it is, I don't want to stir shit up." She explained, pointedly looking past him. Dale followed her gaze over to the Dixon brothers, the younger brother carefully watching Arielle and Dale's exchange. Daryl quickly looked down at his own food, stabbing it viciously with his fork as if the squirrel stew had wronged him somehow. Dale shook his head before turning back to her.

"I think I understand where you're coming from. Those are the last two people I'd want to piss off." He agreed. Dale walked over, joining her on the ground. Arielle swore she heard a few joints pop on his downward descent.

"I'm not gonna have to help you back up, am I?" She joked.

Dale smiled. "Nobody likes a smart ass."

"Better than a dumb ass." He just nodded.

"So, you and the Dixons. What's the story behind that? You are like day to their night, if you don't mind me asking." He inquired, lightly scratching at his white beard and removing his odd bucket hat. Arielle knew it was only a matter of time before people started asking. Placing her half eaten dinner on the ground, she wrapped her arms around her legs, pulling them to her chest.

"Merle and Daryl lived a few houses down from my family. Merle had an on again, off again fling with my oldest sister, Maria. I swear, it was almost like watching someone flip a light switch with those two. My older brother, Bobby, was the same age as Daryl and being that our moms were best friends and the boys saw each other constantly, they have been best friends since they were crapping in diapers. Even after when my mom had died giving birth to me, Bobby took it really hard but he handled it slightly better than my sisters did."

"Well, a few years after they graduated high school, my other sister, Satine, who was Bobby's twin, started dating Daryl. As if he wasn't constantly at our house to begin with. Well, because of our families' close ties, I grew up with them well, Daryl mostly. I'm eight years younger than him but being that Bobby pretty much raised me, I was constantly around him. My dad started drinking heavily after my mom died so he was barely around. Daryl helped take care of me also, dragging me out hunting and when I was older, even sneaking me into bars with him, Merle and Bobby. My cousin owned the local tavern so I think it wasn't really that big of a secret, just made me feel special. And Merle, I didn't see him as much what with him joining the armed forces and being in and out of lockup so much, but I view him as a brother. A much older, ill-tempered, mean as hell brother." Arielle finished, lightly laughing at her own description of Merle.

Dale continued to watch her for a moment, almost studying her, which made Arielle uncomfortable as hell. She fidgeted with a loose strand on the bottom of her jeans, trying to think of something to say to shift his attention.

"So.." She mumbled, not knowing what to say.

"But not Daryl?" He asked, finally breaking his silent streak and confusing Arielle.

"Excuse me?"

"You said that Merle's like a big brother to you but not Daryl. I can see it in your eyes, your expression when you talk about him. It's something more, something deeper."

Arielle's head shot up, eyes widening. She quickly glanced over to the Dixon tent, trying to see if Daryl may have been eavesdropping on their conversation, silently praying that he wasn't. He had his head bent down, eyes intent on his knife which he was sharpening at the moment. She let her mind wander, her eyes flitting across the muscles in his arms as they contracted, working back and forth over the knife. The flickering of the fire in front of him danced over his muscles, making them appear to ripple even more. Arielle moved her eyes to his face. His tongue was lightly sticking out between his lips to the side, a habit of his when he was working intently on something.

Almost as if he felt her gaze, Daryl's bright blue eyes shot up in her direction, locking momentarily with her own. Arielle felt her cheeks heat up. She quickly moved her eyes to the ground, praying that he couldn't see the redness of her face from where he was sitting. She heard Dale chuckle beside her.

"That's what I thought."

"I don't know what you mean, you must be in dire need of having your eyes checked." She snapped, hoping that her voice sounded steadier than she felt.

"I don't think thats it. It's different when you talk about him. Your eyes widen and light up when you mention him. Even when Daryl walks by or comes anywhere nearby, you sorta perk up as if someone called your name or something caught your attention." Dale explained, gesturing between her and Daryl with his hand.

Arielle silently cursed herself, she thought that she could hide her true feelings from the group of strangers that she was now 'bunking' with. Hell, maybe hide it from herself, too. She chalked it up to not being around Daryl in over a decade and she had hoped that she could play it cool around him but Arielle guessed that she hadn't done a very convincing job.

Okay, it was true. Arielle had a huge school girl crush on Daryl when she was a kid, she thought he was cute and kinda cool, even with his rough personality. When she was sixteen, Arielle finally admitted to her best friend, Cassie, that she was in love with Daryl. Her friends had been starting to wonder (out loud and very boldly, if she was to say so) about her sexuality since Arielle had never shown any real interest in the boys at their school. The one exception being her only high school boyfriend, Craig, who turned out to be a walking hard on. After that, she had to work very, very hard to keep her friends away from Daryl as much as possible. They would giggle and talk in hushed voices when he was around, much to his annoyance and Arielle's extreme embarrassment.

"You coming back to Earth anytime soon?"

Arielled jumped slightly from her zone out, almost forgetting where she was. Huffing, she shot a curious glance at Dale.

"So, Professor Body Language, is it really that obvious?" She asked, nonchanantly or at least, hoped she sounded that way. Dale rotated his bucket hat in his hands, considering her question.

"Probably not to the others. I've always tried to read people more deeply than most do. Mainly just to get a feel for what kind of person they are." He answered, placing the hat back on his head. Arielle nodded, picking up her stone cold bowl of stew from the ground, she had nearly forgotten about it.

"I get it but please don't say anything. I'll cross that bridge if I ever come to it." She pleaded with the older man. Dale chuckled again before giving her a light pat on the back and nodded.

"Don't worry about it, it's not my place." He leaned forward, a look of discomfort crossing his features. He glanced at her, almost embarrassed.

"Now don't laugh but I think I might need your help getting up after all."

Arielle bit down on her lip hard to stifle her giggle.

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

Arielle had joined the group at their camp nearly a week and a half ago, her days falling into a mediocre routine. Her days consisted of getting up to help cook and distribute meals, helping the other woman with the laundry, taking turns on patrol and any little odd jobs to keep herself busy. Whenever she had any real down time, she would hang around with Amy and Glenn just to shoot the breeze or talk cars and such with Dale and Jim, a nice, incredibly tall and skinny man who had been a mechanic before everything went downhill.

One of her other time fillers was sharing a cup of extremely nasty coffee with the older women of the group. The men jokingly referred to them as "The Sewing Circle". They included Lori, Andrea, Jacqui, a sweet natured black woman that Arielle had become very fond of, and sometimes Carol, a mild and quiet woman who never spoke much. Carol would join them if her husband, Ed, wasn't being a complete and utter butthead. Arielle hated him right from the beginning, he silently (not so much actually) screamed jerk and she could sniff out an abusive person a mile away. She had been pretty much right where Carol was now with her own father.

'The Sewing Circle' was currently gathered around the fire pit and the topic of discussion this morning: coffee creamer.

"God, what I wouldn't give for some French Vanilla right now." Arielle groaned, swirling the contents of her cup around, shooting the coffee a hostile look. Jacqui, who was refilling her own mug, seconded that with a nod of her head.

"I hear you on that but right now, I'd sing my praises even for a little milk."

"Here, here." Lori piped up, raising her mug in the air in agreement. A small sigh to Arielle's left reached her ears. Holding her own untouched coffee mug, Andrea was staring deeply into the small campfire but her eyes were years away, silently reliving a time that was not here and now. Arielle lightly nudged her elbow into Andrea's, pulling the older blonde out of whatever memory she was playing back in her mind's eye.

"You okay?" She asked Andrea, who looked up, startled. She nodded once before turning her eyes back to the fire and remaining silent for a few seconds before speaking.

"I was just thinking about what I was doing a few months back. I was working on a lawsuit, this woman was suing her former boss for discrimination against her religious beliefs. He tried to fire her because she wanted a holiday off that wasn't a government approved one. It was such a simple case, I didn't want it. Now, I'd kill to be back there instead of here, this. If somebody had told me that in a few months that I would be sitting around a campfire with basically strangers, drinking coffee and that the world would've been overrun by zombies, I would've called the Men in White to commit them and called it a day. Yet, here we are, sitting around a campfire talking about coffee creamer when we could be eaten at any moment." Andrea explained, looking around at the sullen faces surrounding her.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't of said anything. I just got caught up in one of those 'Here's the universe, you are here' red dot on a mall map moments. It sort of just hit me out of nowhere." She said, quietly, turning her attention once again back to the fire. Arielle appraised the woman, letting the strong truth of her words sink in. She was right, a few months ago, she had been working her residency off at a hospital in Kentucky, blissfully ignorant of the coming horrors the next few months would bring. She took a hard swing of her coffee, like take a shot of tequila straight, pulling pretty much the same yuck face.

"Well, as you said yourself, Andrea, the world as far as we know it has been overrunned by walkers. It's not like we can pretend we're standing around the water cooler at work and discuss last night's 'American Idol' episode, now can we?" Arielle questioned sarcastically, raising an eyebrow at the blonde from behind her coffee mug. After a moment, Andrea cracked a hesitant smile.

"No, I guess not. Besides, we wouldn't be talking about a show that ridiculous anyway." Andrea laughed at the shocked expression on Arielle's face.

"I know you didn't mean that. It was an amazing show, okay, it crashed and burned in my opinion after Simon and Paula left but it was great before then."

"Yeah, a great disappointment maybe." Andrea playfully mocked the younger woman. Arielle picked up a very tiny pebble and lightly tossed it in her direction, which Andrea easily dodged. The other women laughed at their antics, extremely relieved that Arielle had eased the tense moment aside.

As if he popped out of thin air, Merle casually strolled up to the laughing women.

"Well ladies, don't ya think the coffee break's over yet?" He snipped, coming to a stop next to Arielle, who just playfully slapped his calf.

"Give it a rest, Merle. There's no reason why we can't take a few moments out of our demanding schedules and just enjoy the moment." She replied. Merle scowled down at her, causing Arielle's smile to falter.

"All I ever hear over this way is jaw-flappin'. It's a wonder ya women get anythin' done at all." Arielle raised her eyebrows in surprise. She placed her cup gently down and stood up, facing him. Merle maybe nearly a head taller than her but she simply glared up at him in response to his rude comment.

"First off, what crawled up your ass this morning? Second, what gives you the audacity to come over here and tell us that we're not getting any work done?' Arielle couldn't keep the venom out of her voice, she was mad at him anyway. He had been acting very standoffish towards her lately. 'The most work I've seen you do around camp since I got here is lifting a beer bottle to and from your mouth."

Merle's eyes narrowed slightly as he stared down at the woman in front of him.

"Now, careful Ellie. We go way back, almost like kin, but that'll only take ya so far. Ya don't need to be talkin' to me like that." He replied in a low and steady voice. Arielle covered her face with her hands before running them through her hair and sighing loudly in frustration. Merle will always be Merle.

"C'mon Merle, let's not be this way. With your expertise of hunting and camping, you are really valuable. I just wish you would help out around here a little more, we could really use it." A huge, sarcastic smile danced acrossed his face.

"Well, how about this, girlie? Why don't ya go on ahead and wish in one hand and shit in the other and let me know which one fills up first?" Merle turned on his heel and walked away. Arielle contined to stare after him, completely sideswiped by Merle's extensive amount of douche baggery.

Sighing, she picked up her mug and sat back down in her lawn chair. Upon sitting, Arielle noticed the collective women were staring at her, wide-eyed and it seemed as if they were all holding their breath.

"What?"

Lori shook her head, rubbing her hands around her mug. "I'll just never get use to that."

Arielle fixed her with a hard stare. "What do you mean?"

The dark haired woman glanced around at the others for back up, suddenly looking even more uncomfortable, if possible.

"The way you talk to Merle. It's just baffling, everyone else here's completely terrified of the Dixons." She finally said after a moment's hesitation.

Arielle glanced around to Jacqui and Andrea for confirmation. Both of them were staring deeply into their coffee cups, unable to meet her eyes. She ponder this, Merle, she could easily understand, maybe even Daryl to a certain amount but she knew that she was biased based on their history. Arielle was pretty sure the only reason why her and Merle never had a knock down, drag out fight was due to the fact that she was a girl. Both of the Dixons' had been there during the hard times in her life. Arielle, like the Dixons', had grown up with a drunk, abusive father. She had the scars to prove it. Her mind wandered to one incident when she was 15, her father had come home one night, reeking of cheap whiskey and chewing tobacco, which she knew to be a bad sign. He had started yelling about how the trash hadn't been taken out yet. Arielle had to work mandatory over time at the local diner that night and had only been home about ten minutes before him. It would've been later than that if Daryl hadn't shown up at her work and gave her a ride home in his rusty bucket of a pickup truck.

She tried to explain this to her father but her explanation fell upon deaf, well incredibly drunk ears. He grabbed a belt out of the nearby laundry basket and began to hit her anywhere he could reach with it. Arielle had managed to get the belt out of his hands thanks to his extreme drunken state, so he used his fists as a replacement. A little while later, her father had passed out and Arielle rushed out of the house. When she arrived at the Dixons' place, Daryl had been the only one home. Upon opening the door, the slight smirk on Daryl's face from seeing her on his door step disappeared. It was quickly replaced with a tightly clenched jaw and a look of pure fury. Slamming the door behind him, Daryl stormed past her and headed down the road.

"Please, Daryl, don't. I just need to use a first aid kit, I haven't replaced the one at my house yet." She had pleaded with him, trying to physically pull him back to his place. Daryl yanked his arm out of her grasp. He shot her a baffled look, shaking his head in disbelief and snorting loudly.

"It ain't been that long ago since ya last had to replace it. Let's see how he likes a taste of his own medicine." He fired back.

Arielle had to pretty much run to keep up with his long, purposeful strides. She kept begging him to leave it alone, which he easily ignored. When they had arrived at her house, yelling and screaming at each other, Merle had just shown up, parking his bike in front of the house. He had come looking for Maria but quickly forgot about her upon seeing Arielle's battered and bloodied face. Between the two of them, they had landed her father in ICU for over a week and it had taken a lot of begging on all the Mason siblings' part to convince him not to press charges on Merle and Daryl. Things became tense for a while between the two families' after that. Just another reason for Satine and Maria to steadily ignore her some more. For Arielle, as pissed as she was at her father then Daryl and Merle, for what they had done, she was secretly touched at how much they both cared about what happened to her.

This being said, it was because of how much Daryl had in the past, wanted to protect and watch over her, that his behavior as of late had Arielle completely stumped. Since after her first day in camp, Daryl completely avoided her as if she was carrying the Black Death. Arielle would purposely find reasons to be within a five foot radius of him. One time, she walked past him sitting in front of his tent and 'accidentally' dropped one of the logs she was carrying for the fire right in front of him. The small log even bounced off his left boot. Daryl glared down at the log before retrieving it off the ground, holding it up to Arielle, not that he would be bother to look up in her direction in acknowledgement. She simply huffed loudly, rolled her eyes and turned away, leaving the log with Daryl. His behavior was driving her absolutely batty. The weirdest part of all of it to her was that even though Daryl was obviously avoiding her at all costs, Arielle was constantly catching him watching her. It became borderline creepy at times. She knew that sooner or later (preferably sooner), she was gonna have to have a long talk with him on his incredibly odd behavior.

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

"Dammit, I feel like an ant under a magnifying glass!" Glenn complained one particularly sweltering Georgia-style summer afternoon. He had removed his baseball cap and was fanning himself with it. Arielle snatched it away from him and fanned herself with it.

"HEY! Give that back! It's mine!" Glenn yelled, indiginantly, ripping it out of Arielle's hand, she merely laughed at him.

"You can have it, it reeks anyway."

The two were sitting on the roof of the R.V., enjoying the beautiful scenic view surrounding them. Arielle leaned forward in her seat, pulling at the back of her red tank top. It peeled away from the skin of her back with a sickening wet popping noise.

"Nice." Glenn commented, airing out his shirt by pulling it back and forth quickly.

"There's gotta be some way to cool off." Arielle muttered, scanning her surroundings with a loud sigh. Her eyes landed on the giant quarry where they collected their water supply. She felt like the biggest idiot in the world. They were camped right up the hill from a lake of all places.

"C'mon." Arielle grabbed Glenn's hand, yanking him to his feet.

"Where we going?" He asked, following her down the R.V. ladder. She smiled brightly up at him, causing him to cautiously pause.

"We're going swimming." She replied while pointing down at the quarry. Arielle and Glenn loudly informed the rest of camp what their intentions were and invited everyone who wanted to come to join them.

Arielle climbed into her tent to change, thanking whatever higher powers there may be that she had packed her bikinis by accident in a mad rush when she was ransacking her closet before. She eyed her swimwear, wondering if maybe she should throw something else on as well. She was, after all, scantily dressed. Deciding on a pair of jean cutoffs, she climbed out of her tent. Just when she turned towards the lake, she caught sight of Daryl sitting outside of his tent, doing absolutely nothing for once. He was shirtless and was picking at his nails with his knife. He sat with his back angled towards her, she could make out a few of the scars that lined his back here and there along with his large tattoo over his right shoulder blade. Once again, they both had abusive, asshole fathers to thank for the battle wounds. Daryl's lack of dress surprised her. He had always been very self concious of his scars, must've been the relentless heat getting to him.

"Hey." She alerted him to her presence. Daryl visibily stiffened, slightly turning his head in her direction.

"What?"

Real friendly, she thought sarcastically.

"Good afternoon to you too, Daryl. Well, being that it's hotter than the lower levels of Hell, some of us are going for a swim down at the lake. Wanna escort me?" She joked half heartedly, still hoping that maybe he would start talking to her again.

Daryl turned around in his seat. Arielle clamped her mouth down on the sharp intake of air that she inhaled. It had been a very, very long time since she had last seen him shirtless and her mind still behaved just as erratically. He had lost some weight but of course, haven't they all? His skin had tanned a little more than she remembered. Of course, the color difference varied when her eyes reached Daryl's shoulders. His arms were much darker due to the fact that all his shirts were forever sleeveless. Her eyes roamed down the contours of his chest, stopping just below his navel. Arielle couldn't afford what those thoughts would cost her if her eyes continued downward onto his..

"Did ya hear me?"

Daryl's loud question pulled Arielle out of her torrid thoughts. She prayed Daryl hadn't noticed her basically eye-fucking him just now.

"Sorry?"

Daryl rolled his eyes. "I said, why do ya want me to come down with ya? Plannin' on drownin' me?"

Why did he have to always be such a downer? She thought to herself. Arielle shifted her weight to her other foot.

"You know why? Because we are friends, or we used to be. I already apologized once, Daryl, I'm not gonna keep begging to be your friend if you're just gonna keep dragging me through the mud. Now, put on your big boy pants and man up!" Arielle yelled, stomping away from him yet again. However, she had turned away too quickly, not seeing the pained expression cross Daryl's face at her words.

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

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	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer**: Do I really have to keep doing this? *sighs* I do not own The Walking Dead, AMC, Norman Reedus (wait for it... angrily throws a vase against the wall), sorry can't resist.

**A/N:** I wanna thank my reviewers, eloquent dreams and Purple Dahlia (yes, i'm a sucker for reviews so everyone gets a thank you). I send you an electronical hug, um, {}. Sorry that's the best I can do. I apologize for my rambling, I tend to do it. Oh, btw, eloquent dreams, I may have my story planned out but I had an amazing dream last night with a crazy twist, can anyone say sequel? I know, I'm jumping the gun and I just have so many ideas bouncing around in my head and not enough time in the day to write them all down, rambling again. Enjoy!

Chapter Four:

"How amazing is this water?" Amy asked with flourish, diving uncoordinately back under the cool lake water. The sounds of the other people barely reached Arielle's ears. She was floating in the cool water, even though it was amazing, the coolness couldn't calm her nerves completely down. Her confrontation with Daryl left her feel cranky and utterly spent. She just contented herself with floating around, soaking up some Vitamin C from the sun's bright rays. Arielle couldn't help but feel slightly bitter at everyone else happily swimming around her. Off on the shoreline, Shane was playing with Carl, tossing him into the water and giving the little boy rides on his back through the water. Lori, was contently sunbathing on the shoreline, forever keeping a close eye on her giggling boy who looked happier than Arielle ever remembered him being. Amy, Andrea and Glen were floating around off to Arielle's left somewhere, debating on who would win in a fight: Gandolf or Dumbledore. Weirdos.

"I'm telling you it would be Dumbledore, he's got that special wand and he is old, like really old. He had plenty of time to bone up on his socerery." Glenn loudly explained, trying to point out his 'winning side' of the argument. Amy and Andrea exchanged a glance before turning back to the young man.

"Okay, Glenn, I love you as a friend and I care about you but I have to ask. I can't keep my mouth shut anymore. You've got to be a virgin, right? You just seem like the 'Dungeons and Dragons' kinda guy?" Amy asked while fighting back a fit of giggles. Arielle wasn't in the mood to join in on the harrassing of poor Glenn so she pushed herself further away in the water, just wanting an escape for a little while. She was happy that she had a group of other survivors to back her up and be there to help out but sometimes, she just felt overwhelmed. Arielle had been survivoring on her own in the woods for nearly three weeks and she almost missed the solitude that came with it. Since she was still 'the new girl', a lot of the others still came up to her all the time and wanted to ask her about her time in the woods by herself. Arielle knew that they didn't mean any harm by it but she felt like she never had any time to herself.

_**You mean time alone with him**__, _a little voice in her mind spoke up, ripping through her current train of thoughts. Arielle pushed it away, not wanting to even think about Daryl at the moment. She just felt so hurt by his avoidance, they had been really good friends at one time and she realized that she needed that again. With her siblings gone, Arielle was alone, for the first time and it terrified her. She had pushed all these thoughts and feelings aside for so long that now since she was idle, they were slipping into her mind. Almost like a leaky faucet, every drip was another face, dead and gone, she would never see them again. Maria, her soft oval face smiling at her, her long corn silk hair always pulled back in a ponytail. Maria had always been a little more boyish than Satine, always playing sports in high school and getting into fights any chance she could. Arielle smiled, she could see what attracted Merle to begin with. She hadn't been as cruel to Arielle as Satine had been, being that she was the oldest, she understood that things went wrong in pregnancies in older women sometimes. Maria was sixteen years older than her and she had moved out of the house when she was eighteen, so, Arielle hadn't seen her around much until she was a little older. Maria finally softened towards her younger sister when she was in grade school, Arielle knew that it must've had something to do with the fact that she looked so much like her mother. Her father had hid most of the pictures of her mother away but Bobby had given her one when she was a child, she still had it and would pull it out from time to time, when life began to feel like to much for her. She would just take in her mother's smiling face, her beautiful mother who had given her life for Arielle's own.

Pulled out of her memories, Arielle felt someone swim slowly up to her left side, she felt the ripples in the water.

"Glenn? I swear to God, if you dunk me, after I kill you violently, you'll be reincarnated as a men's jock strap!"

Before Arielle had a chance to crack her eyes open, she felt hands roughly grip her shoulders and push her downward into the cool water, successfully dunking her completely under. She quickly righted herself and resurfaced, popping out of the water with a shriek of irritation. Sputtering, Arielle pushed her hair out of her face, completely ready to send her assailant to meet their Maker. Imagine her surprise when she spotted Daryl a few feet away from her, lightly treading the water and smiling evilly (and sexily) at her. She felt her insides melt into butter at the devious smirk on his face.

"Well, bein' that I ain't the chinaman, I shouldn' have anything' to worry about in my next life." He replied softly, circling around the enraged and confused woman. Arielle was torn on how to react. Part of her wanted to act on her threat and the other part, much larger part, wanted to throw her arms around him, being elated that he took her up on the offer to socially interact with her again. Deciding on the latter, or at least partially, Arielle splashed water in his face before giving him an innocent smile.

"I knew that my charming and charismatic personality would win you over sooner or later." Daryl snorted.

"Yeah right. I was just worried that ya would end up snappin' one day and massacre the entire camp."

Arielle rolled her eyes while swimming up to him. She noticed him stiffen up slightly, continuing to watch her closely, wondering if she was about to do something bad. She stopped mere inches in front of him and smiled sweetly.

"Nope, just you, Mr. Dixon."

Moving quickly, she forced her leg between both of his, wrapping one of his up in hers and pulled roughly, pulling him slightly off balanced and pushed down on his chest as hard as she could. Arielle managed to only partially dunk Daryl but it was enought to rile him up. Regaining his balance, he attempted to grab her but she was already quickly swimming away.

"Girl, ya know better than that." Daryl caught up with her quickly, which didn't take much. He was a much faster swimmer than she was. Daryl snatched her up from behind, wrapping his strong arms around her waist, hoisting her up into the air.

"Daryl, no, please!" She begged, calling out between laughs. He had her held up in the air, pausing to build the anticipation. He chuckled lightly in her ear.

"Beggin' ain't gonna help ya, sweetheart, enjoy your trip." Daryl quietly said before flinging her into the air. Arielle landed in the water awkwardly, she resurfaced quickly, shooting Daryl a malicious glare. Daryl laughed loudly much to her extreme annoyance. His laughter however, faltered immediately, his eyes nearly popping out of his head. Arielle's expression quickly changed from angered to puzzled.

"What?"

Daryl had raised his eyes skyward, away from her, his cheeks burning red.

"Uh, ya kinda had a wardrobe malfunction there, Janet." He replied, still staring upwards. Arielle glanced down at herself and cried out, quickly ducking back into the water. When Daryl tossed her into the air, somehow the strap holding her top together behind her neck had come undone, giving anyone who was paying the two any attention a free peep show of her assests. Arielle quickly glanced around at the others while hastily tying her top back together. Thankfully, to her immense relief, it seemed that no one else besides Daryl had noticed Arielle's embarrassing moment. Not that having Daryl get a full view of her breasts wasn't horrible enough. Finally situated, she chanced a glance towards him. Daryl had his gaze locked on a small floating twig to his right, as if it was the most interesting thing on Earth. He was chewing on his thumbnail, the flush in his cheeks still evidant. Arielle tried to play the mortifying situation off coolly, or at least tried.

"Hey now, I'm sure that wasn't the first set you've ever seen." She joked, fighting to keep her voice even and internally winced when her comment came out a little high pitched. Daryl, not able to fully meet her gaze, shook his head.

"Ya know it ain', it's different with ya." Daryl visibly froze after the retort left his mouth, like he said something he shouldn't of.

Arielle tilted her head to the side, studying him. His comment burning through her very core. All the confusion, the repressed feelings, the silent hurting of watching Daryl and Satine together, even the awkwardness of late between them molded together into a hodgepodge of unbridled fury, burning through her veins. Watching her compassionless sister and the man that Arielle had fallen in love with, being together and knowing that to Daryl, he probably just viewed her as a kid sister, had felt like a punch in the stomach everytime she saw them together. The thing that had pissed her off the most was that Satine hadn't even really cared about Daryl at all. She used him as basically a fuck buddy, accepting gifts that he bought her with an easy smile. Even though she had been banging half the county behind Daryl's back. It had pained Arielle to know how horribly her own sister was treating him, the one person she had only ever wanted. The only thing that had kept Arielle from running to Daryl and telling him everything she knew was that when it boiled down to it, Satine was her sister. You don't do that shit to family. Arielle just couldn't bring herself to do it. It also didn't help matters that her sister knew about Arielle's 'crush' as Satine referred to it which just pissed Arielle off even more. She had more feelings for Daryl in her pinkie finger than Satine had in her whole being. So being if she did try to alert Daryl to her sister's unfaithfulness, Satine could easily play that card against her, which she did remind her of, alot.

Arielle always questioned Daryl what he saw in her sister. She knew that Satine could be downright manipulative and bitchy at times but even though Daryl ignored her questions, she already knew the answer. Satine had been a vision of beauty. Long shiny corn silk hair, the same shade like Maria and her father, delicate bone structure, perfect complextion, no trace of the annoying freckles that splattered all over Arielle's face. As much as she hated to admit it, if Aphrodite were real, Satine and her would've been neck and neck. There were times though where Arielle hated Daryl for his obvious shallowness. He dated a woman who, everyone knew, was cheating on him and he still came running back. Men.

With all these thoughts and memories swirling through Arielle's head, something inside of her finally snapped and her mouth opened before she could contain herself.

"And why is that? Is it that maybe everytime you look at me, you think of Satine? Or is it that I'm nothing but an annoying kid sister to you?" Arielle snapped, she felt her whole body shaking from the anger rolling through her. Daryl seemed shocked into speechlessness for a moment but he quickly slipped his mask of indifference back into place.

"I didn' say that and don't put words in my mouth!" He snapped back, crossing his arms over his broad chest and clenched his jaw shut. Daryl glared at her in a way that said 'this conversation is over' but she would be damned if he was gonna brush her off that easily.

"Then what? What is it that you find so fucking unappealling about me? You know how I felt about you, hell, still feel about you and you just brushed me off as if I was just some silly, immature child! What is it then and what was so damn wonderful about Satine? Sure, she was beautiful but she was a bitch to you, she treated you like garbage! I would never have done that to you! Yet you kept running right back to her. Am I that repulsive to you?" Arielle half yelled at him, no longer able to keep her cool. She had completely forgotten about the other swimmers around her, everyone had stopped their own conversations and antics, unable to resist the urge to eavesdrop.

"Ya ain' repulsive,' Daryl replied in a low, serious voice, 'not even close." Arielle couldn't hold back the sarcastic laugh that escaped her lips.

"That's all? That's all I get as an answer? Then what's the problem with me, then and now?" Arielle begged, her voice dropping to a mere whisper. She couldn't take this back and forth dance anymore, she had to know if there was any chance that Daryl thought of her as more than an added on family member. Daryl remained silent, staring deeply into her eyes. Arielle held his stare steadfast, silently praying he would answer her. A moment passed and Arielle began to realize that he wasn't going to answer. She almost broke eye contact with him to head back to camp when she saw it, the slightest give. His eyes had softened, his jaw relaxed and he uncrossed his arms. Daryl opened his mouth but didn't say anything, his eyes quickly darting behind Arielle. His indifference mask slipped back on and Arielle felt her heart crack slightly. She looked behind her to see Shane approaching through the water towards them. His eyes darting suspiciously between the two of them before he spoke.

"Everything okay over here, Arielle?" She couldn't wipe the glare off her face. Daryl had been so close to finally opening up to her before the ex-police officer showed up.

"We're fine." Daryl barked before turning away without so much as a glance to Arielle and headed back to shore. As pissed as hell as she was, Arielle didn't waste the view of Daryl trudging soaked back onto shore, wearing only a pair of soaked through boxers. They clung tightly around his hips and outline his butt perfectly, she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling stupidly. Once Daryl had thrown his clothes on and was out of earshot, Shane pulled her attention back to him.

"You okay?"

Arielled smiled lightly at him before responding. "Yeah, I'm good. We just started talkign about the past and things got heated. No biggie."

Shane just nodded, then placed a hand gently on her shoulder.

"Well, I just wanted to let you know that if anything happens, anything at all, if you feel unsafe with Daryl or Merle, all you have to do is just let me know and I'll handle it." Shane said reassuringly. Arielle felt her anger rise up at his request but quickly squashed it back down. He was just trying to be helpful.

"That'll never happen, believe me, I know them both too well. They would never harm me but I appreciate your concern, Shane." She replied evenly. Shane, however, didn't look so convinced. He was rubbing the back of his neck deeply.

"Are you so sure about that? I mean, being a police officer, I've had to deal alot with disputes. I'd get called to a house on a noise complaint and the woman would say that everything was fine then later on, I'd be arresting the man for beating the living day lights our of her.' He paused, seeing the flare up in Arielle's eyes. 'I'm not saying that they would hurt you but you never truly know. The Dixons' make a lot of people around here edgy and I just don't want anything happening to them or you."

Arielle couldn't believe what she was hearing. Just the thought of either Daryl or Merle hurting her just felt wrong, bizarre even. As tempted as she was to tell Shane off, well, you know what, fuck it, she thought to herself.

"You know what, Shane? Those 'Dixons' have done more to protect me than my own drunk, slap happy father ever did. Most of the time, that's who they were protecting me from. I know that sometimes they are as cuddly as cactus' but you don't know them, anything about them. If you people would get off your damned high horses and treated them like human beings instead of backwoods white trash, you'd see some true redeeming qualities in them!" Arielle didn't realize that she had been yelling until she had stopped. She could still hear her voice bouncing off the rock quarry walls. Shane had staggered back a few steps during her outburst. He was staring at her as if she just suggested that maybe the walkers were just misunderstood and needed a hug. Huffing loudly, she trudged through the water back to shore, ignoring the looks she received from Amy and Glenn. Not wanting to return to camp just yet, Arielle climbed up the side of a giant rock next to the lake. The top was basically flat so she laid out on her towel then relaxed on her stomach, wanting to sunbathe for a while. Mainly, to calm her nerves down before facing anyone any time soon.

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

Another one done, I love this! Writing stories (yes, I said STORIES) about the undeniably delicious Daryl Dixon has become a new favorite pasttime of mine. I hope ya'll liked this chapter, I know it's kind short but believe me, you're gonna LOVE the next one! Hey, get your minds out of the gutter, nothing has happened yet between them, at least, not yet... It's a flashback, yes, I know you have been waiting to know what the deal-o is. Anyway, please review and I just might get it out tomorrow. Rambling again, later gators!


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer**: here we go, I do not own The Walking Dead, AMC, Norman Reedus... I got nothing today, sorry. Don't sue me.

**A/N**: Come on lurkers, I see you out there. Please review, I just wanna know if I'm doing a good job. I wanna thank my reviewers again. Thank you, eloquent dreams, I promise that it won't be TOO crazy and I would never leave you guys hanging like that. I'm not cruel, maybe just a little.

PurpleDahlia: Thank you so much for the review and I'm stoked that you are enjoying the story. I'm impatient too and I just love writing this story so much that I just wanna get it out there. Yes, there will be flashbacks throughout the story and yes, I agree, I wish I had some more reviews as well. They make me happy. Anyway thank you.

Enjoy Chapter Five!

Chapter Five:

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

A little while after her argument with Daryl and her blow up on Shane, Arielle had managed her dig her hole a little deeper. The others were making their way back to camp with the exception of Amy and Glenn, who trailed behind wanting to see if their friend was okay. Unable to control her tongue, she lashed out at her two new friends, telling them to mind their own business. Shooting her confused and hurtful glances, the young blonde and asian took off quickly up the path.

Arielle sighed loudly. "Way to go, stupid. At this rate, you'll be all by your lonesome again."

Arielle listened to the breeze blowing, cooling her off from the blistering heat and rustling the leaves on the nearby trees. She listened to the sounds of voices being carried on the wind from the nearby camp. She swatted at a bug flying around her face and just let her thoughts wander, back to the night where everything in her life changed.

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

"I feel like a woman!" Arielle sang into the microphone, nearly smacking the mic into her mouth. She wobbled a little, bending over in her too high heels to grab her beer by her feet, nearly pitching face first off the two and a half foot stage. She began singing again before a man at a back table yelled loudly that the Shania Twain song she was singing had ended. Thankfully, Arielle was too drunk to be embarrassed. An older guy at a table near the stage helped the sligthly plastered girl down the steps then she took off to the bar, stumbling a little but quickly caught the bar stool and steadied herself.

"Bear!' Arielle yelled to the giant bartender, 'another shot of Jack, please." Bear simply shook his head and laughed loudly, continuing to pour another customer's beer from the tap.

"Don't you think that you've had enough? I mean, your friends left a while ago and technically, I don't have to sell you anything. Last I checked, Coz, you still got a few years before the big 2-1." Arielle placed a hand on her cousin's arm.

"C'mon, Bear. It's my graduation night, not to mention, two days ago was my 18th birthday. Also, I didn't see any pink boxes with a big bow on top in your truck outside, we're supposed to be family. I'm hurt." She pouted, planting her hands on her hips. Bear quickly straightened up, shaking his head and pointing a finger at her.

"Don't you dare, Arielle. You remeber that nice quad I got you last year? I think that should cover my ass for the next ten birthdays, don't you think?" Arielle huffed.

"Ever since you gave me that, you and Tara have been over constantly, using it a helluva lot more than I do. You probably just gave it to me as a tax write off!" She joked, dodging Bear's hand as he tried to ruffle her hair.

A few shots and beers later, Arielle felt like calling it a night. She had wanted to leave about a half hour before but some of the regulars there had asked her about her family and it was game on from there. She contributed it to living in a small town her whole life, everybody knew everybody. She continued to chat with them, mainly she was trying to ignore the staring of a group of four men, drinking loudly in a corner opposite of her. They appeared to be in some sort of biker gang but not from around here. Thanks to Merle, Arielle had come to know a lot of the county's 'undesirables' even though most of those guys were harmless enough, just don't get on their bad sides. These guys however, gave her the creeps, they were staring at her like a piece of meat, especially one guy in particular. He had to be in his mid-40s, with a ZZ Top beard and a protruding beer belly. He stood up from his table and began to make his way over to her, his friends hooting and hollaring from the table. Arielle quickly averted her attention back to Bear.

"Hey Bear, could you call me a taxi, please? I'm done." Bear's green eyes moved over her shoulder, towards the front door.

"I think I can do you one better." He replied, nodding towards the door across the bar. Arielle followed his gaze. There stood Daryl, glaring around the bar, looking for someone. His eyes met Arielle's and she couldn't suppress the shiver that coursed through her at the extremely pissed off expression on his face. He began to weave through the tables towards her.

"Did you know he was coming here?" Arielle hissed through her teeth. She was never gonna hear the end of it from Bobby. Bear merely shrugged, giving her a sheepish grin before leaving to help a customer.

"Well, hello there, pretty thing. You wanna drink?"

With Daryl's appearance, Arielle had completely forgotten about the creepy biker. She wrinkled her nose, he smelled a lot like her father.

"No thanks, I'm heading out." She replied politely, standing from the barstool and stepped back a few feet, turning towards the door. Arielle didn't get more than two steps before the man latched on to her arm, roughly.

"Come on, baby girl. You didn't even give me a chance.' He cooed, pulling her up against him with a quick tug. 'How do you know that you want enjoy my ride if you won't even give me a chance? Besides, I'm dying to know if the curtains match the drapes." He laughed loudly, pulling roughly on a lock of Arielle's short red hair. Arielle cringed at his abrasive words, she tried to get away from him but the man had a tight grip on her arm still, painfully tight. She winced at the sharp pain that was shooting through her arm.

"I said no!" She cried out loudly, still fighting against the man's grip, he smiled evilly down at her.

"Ya best be lettin' her go if you value ya bits and pieces!" Daryl had gotten through the crowd and pushed himself roughly between Arielle and the biker, causing the man to lose his grip on her. Arielle backed quickly away.

"You her boyfriend?" The man asked, sneering up at Daryl who was only a few inches taller than him but obviously Daryl was in a lot better physical condition than him.

"Yea, so back the fuck off." Daryl's reply caught Arielle off guard, it took her a few seconds to realize what he was doing.

"Baby, let's just go. No harm, no foul." She went along with him, wrapping a hand around Daryl's tense upper arm. The biker laughed loudly in Daryl's face.

"Well it seems you need to keep your bitch on a tighter leash. You might lose her in here, but hell man, don't be selfish. There's no reason why I can't just borrow her for the night. You need to learn to share your toys." Arielle felt Daryl's arm begin to shake violently.

"Daryl, don't."

The biker's booming laugh was quickly cut off by Daryl's fist crushing the side of his face. Everything happened so fast after that. Daryl continued to beat on the guy, his fist flying in a blur of movement. The man's buddies jumped up to help, pushing Arielle out of the way. They grabbed Daryl and hauled him off their friend, knocking him to the ground and began beating on him. Arielle ran over, screaming for them to leave him alone, tugging on one of the guy's jacket. He backhanded her hard, sending her to the floor. Bear jumped over the bar, baseball bat in hand. A few of the bar patrons jumped up to help sort out the fight. The fight finally broke up, Bear and the others leading the bikers out of the bar. Arielle rushed over to Daryl, who was rubbing his sore jaw. She examined his face carefully. His bottom lip was busted, there were a few cuts on his face and it looked as though he was gonna have a black eye in the morning. Arielle placed a gentle hand on his face, which he quickly jerked away from.

"Let's get ya home." He snapped, then groaned, pulling himself to his feet. Arielle quietly followed him out the door, worried that if she even made a noise, that Daryl would explode on her.

The ride home was excruciatingly quiet. Arielle could feel the anger rolling off of Daryl in waves. His hands were clenching the wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white, contrasting brightly with the blood crusted on them from the fight. Arielle finally spoke, not able to take the silence anymore.

"Go ahead, get it out." Daryl merely glanced at her from the corner of his eye.

"Whatcha mean?" His voice was low and tight, which scared Arielle even more, if he was yelling, she could take that but not this.

"I know you wanna yell at me. I can see it written all over your face." No sooner were the words out of her mouth did the shit storm began.

"What the fuck were ya thinkin', Elle? Christ, goin' off to a bar, by yourself, dressed like that! I'm surprised shit hadn' happened earlier. Good thing it didn', or else ya been up a shit creek without a paddle. Goddammit!" Daryl hollared, his voice echoing loudly inside the cab of his pickup truck, his right hand flying around as he spoke. He pointed at her hard when he yelled about what she was wearing. Arielle's eyes trailed down her outfit. She chose a tight baby blue halter top that tyed around the back of her neck. She had a small amount of cleavage showing but not enough to really gawk at. Her skirt was pink with the same baby blue color swirled into it. Her confused stare landed on Daryl's angry face.

"What do you mean 'dressed like that'? There's nothing wrong with what I'm wearing?" She questioned. Daryl scoffed at her, turning to look at her finally.

"I'm sure the last time ya showed that much skin in public, ya were poppin' into this world in ya birthday suit." Arielle's mouth popped open, she couldn't believe he said that.

"Daryl Dixon!"

"What? It's true!" He yelled, shifting in his seat. Arielle crossed her arms and turned towards her window, staring at the houses as they drove by. Where the hell did he get the nerve to yell at her about the way she dresses? Arielle was sure that he didn't even own a shirt that actually had sleeves. Not that she normally minded, Arielle loved being able to see his arm muscles. She cocked her head ever so slightly to watch him. His right hand was gripping the steering wheel while his left was propped on the car door. He was roughly rubbing his fingertips across his lips. Thanks to the alcohol still flowing through her system, Arielle really had to fight the urge to jump across the seat at him. Pulling up in front of her Dad's green trailer, Daryl slammed the gear into park, turning towards her.

"Well, here ya go." Arielle looked at the gashes across his face which were illuminated by the dashboard light.

"Why don't you come in and I'll clean you up? It's the least I can do being that you saved my ass tonight." Daryl's eyes flitted across her face then to the trailer.

"She isn't here. She's shacking up with some trucker down state." Arielle stated, knowing that Daryl was worried about bumping into his ex. Daryl hesitated before making up his mind then climbed out of the truck.

Once they were inside, Daryl took a seat at the rickety kitchen table. Arielle opened the fridge and grabbed a cold beer out, handing it to him. He nodded in thanks, taking a big drink while Arielle fished a first aid kit out of the bathroom. Arielle grabbed a chair and swung it around to face him, accidently clipping his knee. She smiled sheepishly before she sat down.

"Oops, sorry." Daryl only shrugged his shoulders, nursing on his beer. She cleaned the cuts on his hand before moving on to his face, trying to ignore the fact that she was in such close proximity to him. Daryl was staring down at his feet intently and began to chew on his busted lip, wincing when he felt the sting the action had brought on. Arielle chuckled, causing Daryl's eyes to shoot up to her face.

"What?" She shook her head.

"Nothing, just thinking about all the patch up jobs I've done for Merle in the past but this is the first time you've ever let me help you." Arielle explained while cleaning his busted lip. Daryl grunted at her before answering.

"Figured I should give ya a little practice before ya head off to that fancy doctor school. Give ya a head start." Daryl winced a little at the sting of the alcohol on his lip before he pulled his head away from her hands, wanting another swig of his beer. She couldn't contain the chuckle that left her lips again.

"I think that Merle has given me enough of a head start. That man attracts trouble like flies to shit." Daryl actually laughed lightly with her.

"No arguments there."

Arielle finished cleaning up and threw away the used supplies before grabbing herself a beer. She sat back down, taking a drink before returning her attention to Daryl. He was staring at the cleaned cuts on his hand, his eyes darting between his hand and Arielle.

"What's on your mind? I know there's something up, you're not this fidgety normally." She asked, observing his movements. Daryl opened his mouth then closed it to only open it again. He did this a few times, causing Arielle to smile widely.

"Spit it out, Dixon."

"When ya goin' off to school anyway?" He finally asked, his voice coming out low. Arielle sat her beer down on the table, slowly rotating the bottle around absentmindedly.

"In two weeks, I'm registering early. There are going to be some great summer seminars I don't wanna miss out on. You gonna miss me?" She joked, knowing that she wasn't going to get an actual answer out of him anyway. Daryl smiled at her, surprising her when he actually answered the question.

"'Course I will. It's gonna be quiet around here without ya, no other damsels in distress to save." Daryl replied, pulling a hard, hearty laugh out of her.

"I'm sure you will be able to find another girl around here to keep ya busy.' Arielle's smile falter at her own words. 'That didn't come out quite right."

Daryl's gaze caught hers awkwardly, his blue eyes piercing her blue/grayish green ones. Arielle felt her cheeks flush under his intense stare. She felt that if he stared hard enough, he could see into the deepest recesses of her soul, burn her from the inside out. Arielle shifted uncomfortably in her chair, not able to continue holding his stare. Daryl cleared his throat loudly, standing up.

"I better get going. Gotta work in the morning. Thanks for the beer and patch up." He said gruffly, moving to the door. Arielle didn't know what had possessed her but she was suddenly on her feet, following him to the door. She grabbed the hand that was reaching for the door handle, Daryl turned on spot.

"What is it..."

Arielle leaned up quickly, pressing her lips against his in a rough kiss, stopping the rest of his question. Daryl froze, taken completely by surprise by her actions. He placed his hands on her shoulders to push her away but she wasn't having any of that. Arielle threw her arms around his neck and laced her fingers through his hair, bringing him tightly against her. Daryl continued to stand still, unyielding against her mouth and Arielle felt like she was just making a fool of herself. She was about to pull away when she felt Daryl's firm lips finally give way, kissing her back. Arielle's heart felt like it was singing loudly in her chest. She wrapped her arms tighter around his neck and roughly pushed him back against the door, his arms sliding down her sides and gripped her hips tightly. Their lips continued to move fierecely against each other, desperately wanting more. Daryl ran his tongue lightly along Arielle's bottom lip, seeking entrance which she happily granted. As his tongue filled her mouth, she felt a fire begin to burn in the pit of her stomach. Pulling back slightly, Arielle pulled his bottom lip into her mouth, lightly sucking on it before biting down, elicting a low growl from Daryl. Finally needing oxygen desperately, Arielle reluctantly pulled back, gasping for air and placed her forehead against his. She took a few deep breaths before opening her eyes. She was shocked at the hardness that had formed there. Daryl unlaced her arms from his neck, placing them at her sides.

"Sorry, I shouldn' of done that, it's wrong." He whispered, pushing her lightly backwards.

Arielle was floored, what the hell? Daryl had kissed her back and now he was saying it was a mistake. Arielle fought to keep her tears at bay.

"What? You kissed me back!" She exclaimed, scrambling for an answer herself for his sudden coldness. Daryl fixed her with that hard glare again.

"It was a mistake, Kid. Don't let it go to your head!" He spat before turning and exiting out of the door. With him gone, Arielle's eyes finally betrayed her and she began to sob loudly, falling to the floor.

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

Arielle felt like such an idiot. She had stayed down by the lake for too long and now it was nearly dark. She threw her towel over her shoulder and began the hike up the path back to camp. She felt even stupider for not bringing a weapon with her. She felt incredibly vulnerable without even a knife to protect her. Arielle was halfway back when she heard a rustle of leaves to her right. Pausing, she glanced around, scanning the tree line. Seeing nothing, Arielle continued cautiously scanning the path ahead of her. She heard a twig snap behind her. She spun around only to be greeted by a walker bearing down on her. She let out a blood curdling scream and took off back to camp. Arielle only made it a few feet before her sandal caught a dip in the ground, which sent her sprawling face first. So maybe wearing flip flops in a post zombie apocalyse was a really bad idea. Arielle scanned the ground, looking for anything to protect herself with. She spotted a thick stick a few feet to her left.

Scrambling, she reached out and grabbed it, jumping to her feet. Arielle spun around and raised the stick, swinging it at the decomposing walker's head, feeling the reverberating crack vibrate up into her arms as the stick connected. She had never been happier than at this moment that Bobby had conned her into joining a baseball team when she was a kid. The walker fell to the ground with a resounding thud. Arielle quickly moved above it and continued to bash the once man in the head, only stopping when she noticed the thing's brains had begun to ooze out of the large opening in the side of his head. Arielle back away unsteadily, breathing erratically and fell to her knees. She had killed many walkers before with her bow and arrows but this was different, too up close, too personal. More terrifying. She didn't hear the approaching sound of people running down the path until they were upon her. She just continued to stare at the beaten dead man in front of her. She felt someone pull the stick out of her hand and jerk her head up. Finally snapping out of it, Arielle fixed her stare into the bright blue eyes in front of her face. Daryl had pulled the stick out of her grasp and was knelt down in front of her.

"Elle! Elle, ya okay? Ya bit? Please speak to me." Daryl demanded, cupping her head in his hands and very lightly shook her. Arielle flung her arms around him, breaking down in Daryl's arms. She normally would've been embarrassed about cracking up in front of Daryl, she seemed to be doing that alot lately, who was usually either pissed off most of the time or had the cool air of indifference clinging tightly around him. Right now, she was too shaken up to really care.

She continued to cry into his shoulder for a few moments before her sobs quieted down to light sniffles. Arielle finally pulled away from him, trying to hide her red puffy face from Daryl. His eyes scanned her body, looking for any bites or scratches. Finding none, Daryl lightly placed a hand on her shoulder, trying to make eye contact with the shaken woman.

"Elle, ya okay? Did ya manage to shut the water works off?" He joked, trying to get her to calm down. Arielle cracked a hesitant laugh.

"Yeah, I know how the sight of a blubbering woman terrifies you more than an army of walkers." The sound of people approaching caught her attention. Shane, Morales, a hispanic man, and Merle broke out of the trees and approached the two.

"We searched the immediate area but found nothing. This guy must've been a loner.' Shane placed the butt of his rifle on the ground and rubbed his head. 'Jesus, this is the first one we've come across up here." Merle walked around Shane, heading towards Arielle.

"Knew it was gonna happen sooner or later. Ain't nowhere safe anymore." Merle snapped before looking down at Arielle.

"Ya good, Ellie?" He asked using a tone a little lighter than he had with Shane. Arielle worked up the rest of her strength and stood up to face him. She fixed a sarcastic grin on her face, she didn't want Merle to know exactly how shaken up she was.

"Course I am. Nothing I can't handle." Arielle replied. Merle shook his head, grinning like a fool.

"Just curious. Ya were screamin' and cryin' like a pussy just now, was wonderin' if ya finally cracked."

"Stop bein' such an ass, Merle!" Daryl snapped, stepping between Arielle and his brother. Merle merely grinned even wider.

"What's wrong baby brother, did I hit a nerve? One sister wasn' enough for ya so ya gotta go after the other now? I'm sure poor, ol' Satine would be rollin' in her grave if she knew ya was tryin' to get in her baby sister's panties." Merle laughed cockily, stabbing his finger into Daryl's chest as he spoke. Daryl shoved Merle away, causing him to stumble.

"So I was right, wasn'..." Merle didn't get to finish his remark thanks to the hard slap across his face by Arielle, who was so angry, her vision was filled with red.

"What the hell, Merle? You've been nothing but an asshole lately. Are you fucking using again?" She demanded. Merle could be intolerable at the best of times but whenever he was tweaked, he was unbearable to be around. Arielle examined his eyes closely, not surprised when she noticed how bloodshot they were and how they moved around so erratically. Daryl grabbed her hand and pulled her back up the path towards camp before things got too heated between the old friends.

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

Hope you enjoyed the flashback, just a tiny peek into the complicated past of Daryl and Arielle. Well, please leave a review and let me know what you're thinking. Thanks!


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer**: I hate doing this, ugh! I have no rights to The Walking Dead, AMC or that gorgeous piece of man that plays Daryl Dixon.

**A/N:** Here's another chapter for all of you, I really, really like this chapter and I hope you all do, too. It's a little more talk, a little more action in my opinion but keep your minds out of the gutter, girls. You still got a little while to go. I just like a good story that builds up to the more, well, physical aspect of a relationship. I'm also not going to be able to update everyday, my husband's family reunion is this weekend and I'm crazy busy getting ready for that. Why do I ramble so? Enjoy Chapter 6!

To my reviewers, old and new:

PurpleDahlia: I'm glad you liked the flashback, I had a lot of fun writing it. Thank you so much for your words of encouragement.

May85: Thank you for the review, I'm happy that you like the story and I'll get them chapters out to you and everyone as quickly as I can. Thank you once again.

eloquent dreams: You're welcome. I love writing about Daryl and Arielle's past as much as, I hope, that people enjoy reading about it. Thanks for being there from the get go. I hope you like this next chapter *winks*.

AudioRKO: I'm happy to hear that you like my story. I am also a weakling for these kind of stories too. Don't see enough of them. As for that flashback, well, you're just gonna have to wait and see. I'll definitely check out your story as soon as I can.

maawwge: Thanks for the review and I'm touched that this is one of your favorites, I can be really critical of my writing and I sometimes don't think it's very good but thank you very much. Enjoy this next one!

Chapter Six:

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

Daryl wiped the sweat off his brow and tried to focus on his task. He was restringing his bow before heading out to hunt this morning. The camp wasn't in dire need of any more meat at the moment but he had to get out of there for a little while, mainly away from Merle, who was still in a pissy mood since the Arielle/walker incident last night. His brother had been wandering around, motherfucking anyone who got too close, trying to pick a fight with someone. Daryl just wasn't in the mood for his shit today.

Finally finished, he threw his crossbow over his shoulder and fetched his extra bolts out of his tent. Catching sight of the sheet wrapped bundle under his cot, Daryl snatched it up, ignoring the nagging voice in his head to just leave it there and head off on his own. He exited his tent and headed up the path to the heart of camp, passing up Arielle's tent, knowing already she wasn't in there. Daryl's eyes scanned the area before finally locating the fiery redhead by the fire pit. She was helping the black woman and the mexican woman with the last of the morning's breakfast dishes. She was laughing at something the black woman said, her wide smile spreading over her delicate face. Her eyes suddenly moved upwards, landing on him. Daryl felt his stomach give that all too familiar lurch, her smile widening when she spotted him, causing him to quickly glance down at his feet before looking back up, giving her a hesitant smirk. Daryl jerked his head his way, beckoning her over. Arielle shot him a confused look before turning toward the women to excuse herself and made her way over to him. She tripped over one of the kids' toys that they had left laying around but steadied herself, casually glancing around to see if anyone saw her near face-plant. Daryl smiledly widely at the sight, that girl was forever hopeless.

"What's up?" She asked, sliding her hands into the back pockets of her loose fitting jeans.

"I was, uh, wonderin', I'm goin' huntin' and, do ya wanna come?" A large grin appeared on her face.

"I thought that you hated it when I went with you. If I remember correctly, 'Ya louder than a rhino durin' matin' season!' Your words if I am right which I know I am." Daryl chuckled, remembering the last time they had gone hunting together. She had stepped on some loose rocks at the top of a slight hill and rolled all the way down, screaming and cursing up a storm during her rapid descent.

"Well, ya are and I probably won't catch nothin' with ya there but I figured ya might wanna get away for a while." Arielle nodded in agreement but then shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't have my bow anymore, remember? I dropped it when I was running from that pack of walkers." She pointed out. Daryl shifted his weight to his other foot before handing her the sheet wrapped bundle he had brought with him, turning his eyes away after Arielle took it.

"Here, now don't lose this. I ain't makin' ya another." He said roughly, moving his eyes back to the ground.

Arielle stared at him oddly, removing the sheet before gasping. She was holding a medium size handmade bow made out of wood. She had no idea that must've been what he had been whiddling away on for the past week everytime she saw him sitting outside his tent. Whenever Arielle had gotten too close, Daryl would quickly toss whatever he had been working on into his tent before walking quickly away to busy himself with something else. She had no clue where he had gotten the bowstring to make this. Giving the bow a long once over, she noticed her initials 'AM' carved into the wood near the top of the bow. Arielle blinked quickly, trying to not let him see the tears that were threatening to fall.

"Now, don't be gettin' all teary-eyed. I'll leave ya weepy ass here." He joked, shooting her a quick glance. When she didn't comment or say anything at all, Daryl began to feel antsy, maybe she didn't like it or something.

"I know it ain't nothin' fancy, not much to work with around here." Daryl was beginning to ramble slightly but was cut off by Arielle throwing an arm around his shoulder, tightly pulling him against her in an one armed hug.

"Thanks, Daryl. You have no idea how much this means to me and it's absolutely perfect." She whispered, tickling his ear with her warm breath. Daryl nodded, wrapping an arm around her waist, ignoring the staring of a few of the others nearby.

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

Ten minutes later, Arielle and Daryl were walking through the woods side by side, her makeshift quiver now strapped on her thigh once more. The quiver and the weight of the bow in her hands felt oddly comforting, she relished the feeling of familiarity and protection that came with it. Daryl stopped, scanning the trees that surrounded them causing Arielle to pause as well. After a moment he began trekking through the underbrush once more, never making a sound. This had always irritated Arielle to end, no matter how carefully she moved and mimicked his steps, she was always greeted with the resonating crunch of twigs and leaves under her feet. It must be getting under Daryl's skin as well. Every few minutes, he would shoot her an annoyed glance then look down at her feet before shaking his head, sighing loudly.

Arielle wasn't sure exactly how much time had passed since they began but her good mood was quickly wearing off. Daryl had managed to bag five squirrels and two rabbits and all she had was one rabbit, which wasn't very big to begin with. Daryl had laughed hysterically when she returned to where he was standing with an annoyed expression and dinky rabbit in tow. After that fiasco, fresh determination coursed through her and she scanned the ground with fervor, hoping to up her count. Arielle wandered off about 15 yards to his left, trying to find any fresh tracks. She finally spotted some, bending over get a closer look, hope flared in her chest when she realized that they were deer tracks. They were heading in the opposite direction that Daryl was currently moving. Arielle whistled low, Daryl's head shot up, eyes scanning the area before landing on her. She lifted her hands to her head, forming antlers then pointed to herself then the direction that the deer had taken. She pointed at him then in the parallel direction, wanting him to circle around. Daryl nodded, moving forward stealthily in the direction she pointed. Arielle, as quietly as she could, followed the tracks through the trees, only pausing to stoop down to check the tracks a little better.

After following the tracks for a little while, Arielle moved around a large bush then quickly shot back behind it. About 20 or so feet away, a young buck had it's back turned to her, head down and was nibbling on a patch of high grass. Arielle silently pulled an arrow out and placed it on the bow, pulling it back. She held her breath while waiting for the buck to move and give her a good shot, already holding him in the crosshairs. A snap to its left quickly brought its head up, moving around slightly to glance around. Arielle didn't hesitate. She released, hearing the arrow slice through the air before the arrow embedded itself into the buck's side. She quickly ran to its side, grabbing the antlers and jerked its head hard to the side with all of her strength, snapping its neck. The sickening crack made her stomach roll but she didn't want the buck to suffer longer than necessary. Arielle released the antlers and stepped away, wiping away sweat that had accumilated on her brow. A voice to her right almost caused her to shout out in surprise.

"I gotta admit, that was kinda hot." Daryl stepped out from behind a tree. He made his way over to her, sizing the buck up. Arielle chuckled at his perverseness.

"Only a Dixon would find that hot." She pulled the arrow out, cleaned it and put it back in her quiver. She turned her attention back to the buck.

"So, since I bagged a buck, that should count for more than your five squirrels and two rabbits." Daryl eyed her up, a smile crossing his face before laughing.

"Alright, I'll give ya that one but I'm goin' easy on ya with ya bein' a girl and all." Arielle's eyebrows shot up.

"Oh, as if! That was an amazing shot and you know it, Dixon." She replied, giving his shoulder a slight shove.

"So, how do we get him back to camp?" She asked, taking in the size of the buck. Daryl pulled the line of squirrels and rabbits off his shoulder, handing it to her. She merely stared openingly at him.

"Daryl, no. It's too heavy. You could hurt yourself and I am not dragging a deer and your big butt back to camp when you pull a muscle." Daryl paused, shooting her a glare.

"I don't have a big butt."

"You know what I meant. Come on, I can help you carry it." She pleaded but it fell upon stubborn ears.

"I ain't no sissy. Carried dozens of these before and I ain't ever hurt myself. Ain't big anyway, still a youngin." He retorted, pulling the buck up into his arms then over his shoulder. His legs buckled a little but he repositioned himself then began heading back to camp, Arielle glaring a hole into the back of his head. Daryl turned back to her.

"Ya comin' or do ya want to keep starin' daggers at me all day?" He asked roughtly before turning back and continued walking. She sighed but followed him, stomping loudly.

"Can't I do both?" Arielle snapped, bypassing him to walk ahead. She heard a loud thump behind her. Turning around, Arielle noticed that Daryl stopped and dropped the buck to the ground.

"What's wrong? Did you hurt yourself?" Concern etched into her voice. Daryl was glaring at her, nostrils flared in annoyance and his breaths were coming out in huffs.

What now? Arielle thought.

"What's wrong now?" She demanded, walking back to where he stood.

"I wanna know what ya deal is." He snapped, causing Arielle's stride to falter. Now she was confused.

"My deal? You're the one who dropped the buck to have some sorta tantrum." She snapped back, crossing her arms in front of her. This obviously wasn't what Daryl wanted to hear because he shook his head violently and threw his arms out at her.

"I'm talkin' about ya. Ever since I found ya and brought ya back, ya've had me chasin' my tail around to the point where I don't know which ways up or down! First, we're buddy, buddy again like the ole days then ya angry with me then ya spoutin' feelings at me like a damn broken water hose!' Daryl was practically hollaring by now, face red and arms swinging like a damn windmill. 'I can't get a handle on ya! What is it that ya want from me?"

Anger flared up inside of Arielle's chest at Daryl's words. Could he really be that damn blind? Were all men that big of idiots? Arielle was beginning to think that she was going to have to put everything in writing for him. She didn't know how much more of this high school drama she could take.

"You've made it pretty obvious what you want, Daryl. I practically threw myself at you all those years ago and you rejected me, hurt me. Even now, it feels as though you keep this emotional and physical barrier between us. I'm trying to settle with just being your friend but you make it so fucking difficult!" Arielle kept her emotions on a tight leash, she refused to cry anymore over Daryl Dixon.

"I'm exhausted, Daryl. I'm tired of always wondering from day to day which side of you I'm gonna have to deal with. The one where you are joking with me, being nice, the one that had always been there for me when I needed you most. The side that I fell in love with.' Arielle's voice finally cracked on that last part, Daryl's head shot up when she finally said what she felt out loud after all this time. 'Or the other side that can be abrasive and so hurtful that everytime it shows, my heart breaks a little more, knowing that I'm just always gonna be a kid sister to you."

Now that she had gotten the truth off her chest, Arielle felt completely drained and wanted nothing more to climb into her sleeping bag and sleep the day away. Daryl was still standing a few paces in front of her, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Unable to stand the tension any longer, she turned away from him to continue on. She had only taken a few steps before she heard Daryl quickly approach her. Arielle paused, closing her eyes tightly, she didn't have the strength to do this anymore. Daryl's hand clamped down on her shoulder, spinning her around.

"Daryl, I can't keep doing this..."

Daryl firmly pressed his lips to hers, cutting off whatever she was going to say next. Arielle's eyes widened in surprise, completely taken back by his advance. She quickly closed them, wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him closer. As their kiss deepened, Daryl tangled one hand into her hair while the other slid to the small of her back and pulled her tightly against him. They kissed fierecely, each one trying to win the battle for dominance over the other. Daryl pushed her roughly up against a nearby tree, his mouth moving away from hers, causing Arielle to whimper from the lose of his touch. He kissed along her jaw line, moving down to her neck, burning her skin as he went along. Arielle gasped when Daryl bit down softly on the sensitive skin below her ear. Daryl grabbed her hands and held them up above her head against the tree in one of his own. She relished the sweet, torturous sensation that his mouth and other hand, which was lightly rubbing through the light material of her shirt along her rib cage, was stirring inside of her. Daryl continued kissing along the other side of her jaw, leaving a burning trail in his mouth's wake. He finally released her hands which quickly found their way to grip his hair tightly. He brought his mouth back to hers for one more soft, tantalizing kiss before pulling away, keeping his eyes locked on her face, gaging her reaction. It took Arielle a few moments to remember how to open her eyes and control her breathing. When she finally did, she locked them onto Daryl's, his taking on a slightly darker blue hue than normal. Finding her voice, she cleared her throat before she said anything.

"Wow. What brought that on?" Daryl's eyes drifted down to her lips, bringing his hands up to cup her face before he spoke.

"Ya want the truth?" His husky voice caused another stirring of longing in Arielle's stomach, which was already doing saumersalts. She nodded, not trusting her voice at all. He inhaled deeply then released, his hot breath tickling her neck.

"I've always wanted ya, Elle. It took me a while to figure out and when I did, I ended things with Satine. Things between us had been goin' down hill for a while and I was just too much of a pussy to walk away. I finally realized how I truly felt about ya when ya were sixteen." He explained, lightly rubbing his thumbs along her jawline. Once again, Arielle couldn't control her mouth.

"Creepy, old pervert." Daryl's eyes flashed at her, wiping the smirk off her face.

"I felt like one at first, but it wasn't like that so much, I just realized how much I cared for ya. It grew as time went on. I kept my thoughts quiet, biddin' my time until you turned eighteen. Then it wouldn' be so bad. I was crushed when ya got that full scholarship for school then felt like a selfish asshole for bein' mad that ya did.'

"Part of me wanted to beg ya not to go, to stay with me then I really thought about it. Ya had a shot, a real chance to get out of that trailer park, that shit hole town and I couldn' take that away from ya. As much as I wanted ya to myself, I couldn' do that to ya. That's why I pushed ya away before, the night of that bar fight." Daryl confessed, staring deeply into her eyes. Arielle's heart felt like it was gonna beat out of her chest, she had waited so long to hear Daryl say these words that everything felt surreal. Daryl became uncomfortable by her silence.

"Dammit, woman! Usually ya mouth is goin' a mile a minute. Now when I finally admit this, ya suddenly a mute." She smiled hesitantly at him, she couldn't believe that he had been suffering in silence almost as long as she had. Daryl started to pull away, feeling rejected but she threw her arms around his stomach and buried her head into his chest.

"Sorry. I'm just so happy I don't know what to say. Everything feels surreal, that I'm gonna suddenly wake up." Daryl wrapped his arms around her shoulders and buried his face into her neck.

"S'ok. I was startin' to worry that I had pushed ya away too many times and that ya hated me for it."

Arielle laughed at the ridiculous notion. "Never could hate you."

They stayed that way, clinging to each other and basked in the happiness of finally finding each other. Arielle was the first to pull away, giving him a small, quick kiss on his neck.

"We should be heading back. I hate being out here after dark. I had enough of that to last a lifetime." She retrieved the line of dead animals off the ground along with her bow. Daryl walked by, giving her ass a hard slap. She yelped out loud and straightened up to yell at him. Her resolve however, crumbled upon seeing the deviously handsome smile on his face.

"Are you serious? Again?" She snapped when Daryl lifted the buck back up onto his shoulder. He waved her off as he made his way back to camp yet he kept a slow pace, allowing her to catch up with him. Arielle lightly hipchecked him when she caught up. When they made it to the outskirts, Daryl softly ran his fingertips down her arm and gave her hand a tight squeeze before continuing on.

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

"So, Arielle, the aliens landed last night and destroyed all the walkers. They invited us to a luau on their home planet, wanna go?" Lori questioned the redhead, who was absentmindingly refolding one of Carl's shirts for the third time. Arielle had been staring down the hill toward the Dixon tent on and off for the last hour. She barely kept up with the conversation that Lori, Andrea and Amy were having. She merely threw in a few 'yeps' and 'sures' occasionally but her attention kept lingering to the younger Dixon who, at the moment, was chopping firewood. She was sure of the fact that his white undershirt which was clinging to him tightly from working in the sun and his baggy cargo pants had something to do with her being distracted. Also, whenever Daryl lifted the axe above his head, his shirt would ride up, giving her a view of the defined 'V' lines separating his hips from his stomach. That sight alone made her want to melt into a puddle where she stood. She occasionally wiped at her mouth, making sure that she wasn't drooling. Suddenly remembering that Lori had asked her something, Arielle snapped out of her naughty daydreams that had begun to play out in her mind.

"Um, sure." She replied before picking up the same shirt again. Lori looked pointingly down at the shirt before glancing around to the blonde sisters and busted out laughing, drawing them into the laughter as well. Arielle's eyebrow shot up that the sight of the cackling women.

"What?" Andrea laughed once more before turning her gaze back to the young woman.

"You've folded that same shirt three times and you just said 'sure' on going to an alien planet for a luau." Andrea explained which caused the others to start laughing hysterically again. Looking down at her hands, Arielle quickly dropped the shirt and scratched her head roughly.

"Sorry, I'm a little distracted today." Her gaze burning a hole in the laundry basket in front of her, it took every ounce of resolve she possessed not to look down towards the man playing lumberjack.

"That's obvious enough.' Lori joked, sitting next to her and pulled her own basket towards her. 'What's up?"

Arielle's eyes traced over Lori's face before landing on her own feet. She was itching to talk to someone about her and Daryl but she knew the man well enough to know that he wouldn't like the extra attention that it would bring. She decided to just skirt around the truth.

"What? The end of the world isn't distracting enough?" She asked softly, her eyes fixed on her own hands as she continued to fold. Lori continued to watch her, scanning her face.

"True but it isn't the reason you're playing space cadet today. If you need to talk, I have a pretty good ear."

Arielle lifted her head up to meet Lori's gaze. She really like Lori and she desperately wanted to talk with someone. Arielle knew that 'before', Lori had been married to a police officer who had been Shane's best friend, that he had died in the line of duty. She didn't talk about him much but when she did, this look of love lost would pass over her face before clearing her throat and pushed for a different topic. Finally resolving on talking to her, Arielle set the newly folded shirt down and turned towards Lori.

"I... uh.. it's just that..." She paused, hearing the sound of footsteps. Arielle turned to see Daryl approaching them, carrying an arm load of recently split wood for the fire they were sitting at. He placed them down and looked around at the women.

"Mornin', ladies." He greeted them, causing Amy and Andrea to freeze midfold with their mouths hanging open and eyes wide. Lori caught herself first, not wanting to be rude.

"Good morning, Daryl. Thank you for the firewood." Daryl nodded in response then turned to Arielle, giving her a quick nod and smirk before turning away. Arielle felt the familiar flush in her cheeks and chewed on her bottom lip, her eyes glued to his retreating back, well, maybe a little lower.

"What the heck! That's the most civil thing I've heard from either of them! Is the world ending? Oh wait.." Amy trailed off, feeling every ounce of blonde at her comment. Arielle grabbed another shirt and turned her focus back to Lori, who was staring knowingly at her with a small, open smile on her face.

"What?" Arielle questioned, feeling horribly embarrassed for getting caught watching Daryl. The brunette laughed low and shook her head.

"You don't need to tell me anything now. That exchange and your blushing just spoke volumes."

This caused Arielle to blush again.

"I don't know what you're talking about." She snuck a glance at Lori through her hair. She still had that silly smile on her face.

"Uh-huh. Denial only works for so long, you know." Lori replied, standing to pull some more clothes off the nearby clothes line. Arielle sighed, climbing to her feet to help her. They worked for a few moments before she broke the silence.

"Do you think it's a bad idea?" She asked quietly, fingering the button hole of one of the mens' shirt she was holding. Lori fixed her with a questioning look.

"I mean with the way the world is and what's happened. It's cruel and horrible. I... what if one day while Daryl's out hunting, he gets attacked? I was barely getting by on my own, alone. I don't think I could go on if something happened to him. I already thought I lost him once. We just found each other and to lose him, I just can't..." She covered her face with her hands to hide her tears. The imaginary image of Daryl's life slipping away into the unknown drifted in her head, not going away. Just thinking it hit her hard like a ton of bricks. She fought the tears away, failing tremendously. She felt like she did nothing but cry anymore. Arielle felt herself being pulled into a hug by thin, long arms. Lori lightly patted her back, letting her calm herself down. Arielle pulled back and wiped the tears away.

"Do you want my honest opinion?" Arielle nodded, wrapping her arms around herself.

"I think it's a precarious choice. You have to weigh the pros and cons of each choice. You can choose to be together and everything may just turn out peachy for you both or something may happen to one or both of you and which ever one is left will have to deal with that. Or you could stay alone, which may splinter whatever friendship you had before and you and Daryl will still end up hurting. In the end, we could all go at any moment and it's terrifying but this is the reality we live in. This is a choice that no one can make for you. Do you love him?" Lori asked while pushing some stray hair out of her face. Arielle didn't even pause.

"I have for years, I've never been able to have a functioning relationship because they weren't Daryl. It's always been him." Lori smiled at her.

"Well, it seems to me you have your answer. No reason to let the armageddon get in the way of love." Arielle pondered her words, letting them float around in her head.

"Thanks Lori." She gave Lori a small smirk which she returned.

"Anytime. I must say I'm surprised though. Daryl Dixon? I didn't see that one coming." Arielle didn't get upset at the comment. She knew how the Dixons' looked to the others.

"I know they rub people the wrong way but they're really not all bad. Well, Merle's the one you gotta watch sometimes, when he's using, you never really know what he's gonna do." Arielle didn't bother sugarcoating Merle, everyone here knew how he could be. Lori wasn't able to completely conceal the rolling of her eyes.

"That makes me _real _comfortable." Lori muttered, drawing out the 'real'. Arielle agreed, she was really worried about Merle. She was afraid that one day he was going to end up hurting someone. She was mentally interrupted by Shane, who had approached the two of them.

"Lori, Arielle." He greeted them, absently. Arielle didn't blame him for his cool attitude towards her lately. He must still be upset about her blowup on him at the lake.

"Shane, something up?" Lori questioned, giving him her undivided attention. Shane rubbed his head lightly before answering, placing his 'POLICE' hat back on.

"It's time to address everyone about the run." He replied.

"What run?" Arielle asked. She hadn't heard anything about a run. Lori gave Shane a stern look.

"A supply run to Atlanta, we're running really low on everything." He replied, shooting Lori a apologizing look. Arielle's eyebrows shot up and her eyes widened.

"A supply run? Atlanta? You must be joking." She stated, disbelief in her voice. Atlanta was a walking cemetary. She had tried herself getting through the city once but noticing the huge amounts of walkers, high tailed it the hell outta there. Anyone wanting to go would have to have a death wish. Glenn went into the city a few times for supplies and it always scared the hell out of her. She had been a walking mess until he would return, unharmed.

"Come on. We'll talk all this through with the group." Shane stated, walking away. She shot Lori a bewildered look before following. Shane called everyone to the main fire pit before beginning.

"We're running real low on supplies. We didn't have alot to start with and with what Arielle brought with her, helped a few extra days but it won't last much longer. I've talked with a few others and I purpose sending a search group out to Atlanta to gather more instead of just having Glenn go alone. This way, we'll have more and that'll mean less trips. We'll be completely out of food and such within a week. We don't have any other options.' Shane paused, scanning the group. 'It's voluntary. No one's being forced to go. Whoever's going will leave in the morning in two days. Gives everyone some time to really think about this and make a decision."

Someone behind Andrea spoke up first. "What if nobody volunteers? Then what?"

"I pray it doesn't come down to that. These are our friends, family, loved ones here. Are we to just starve ourselves, let them starve?" Shane replied.

Arielle snuck at glance over to Daryl and Merle. The latter had the air of boredom on his face that spoke that this was all one big waste of his time. She glanced at Daryl who was staring intently at her, biting his thumbnail and shifting from foot to foot. She shot him a look that said 'Don't even fucking think about it'. Her eyes widened when he took a small step forward and felt her heart drop into her stomach.

Oh, hell no. She thought.

"I'll go.' She blurted out, stumbling forward, not even really thinking. She just couldn't stand the thought of Daryl going into the walker infested city, she had seen it first hand. 'I have my bow and arrows, they're quiet. It'll be an advantage."

"The hell ya are! Ya keepin' ya skinny ass here!" Merle bellowed, cutting through everyone and striding quickly towards her.

"Someone needs to go. What's the difference if I go? What makes me any different than Glenn or Dale or Andrea?" She demanded, her anger flaring. Merle scowled down at her.

"Cause I don't give two shits about them! You, miss, is pretty much my baby sister and I ain't gonna sit by and watch ya walk into a fuckin' death trap!" Merle hollared into her face before turning to Shane.

"Ya don't want her going anyway, Officer Shane. She's a doctor and I'm pretty sure they are few and far 'tween nowadays." Arielle's eyes clenched shut at his words. She didn't want that getting around just yet. She was worried about being treated differently. This mainly included her ass sitting on a log, not allowed to wander off by herself and getting killed.

"Wait, what? You're a doctor, Arielle?' Shane questioned, confusion written all over his face. 'You just seem a little young."

Arielle shot Merle a scalding glare. "Yeah, I only had a few months left of my residency when all this shit went down."

Shane rubbed his five o'clock shadow. "Well, that changes things."

Arielle went from upset with Merle to instantly pissed off at Shane in two seconds flat.

"What the hell does that mean?" She snapped, stepping over to Shane. The older man raised his hands up in front of him.

"I agree with Merle, for once. It's not a good idea to send you out there. Your medical experience is priceless right now. I think it's better if you stay here."

Arielle scoffed at him.

"And what? You gonna build me an ivory tower and the only way to reach me is for me to throw down my hair? Don't put me on a fucking pedestal Shane! Everyone else is just as important, every life is valuable!" Arielle snapped then turned away, heading to her tent. She needed time to fume, again.

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

A littler longer than usual but it's been a few days since I updated and I wanted to throw a little more in. Sorry about the whole head snapping part with the buck, I don't even know if that is possible with an average sized girl weighing about a buck (get it?) thirty. I hope you all enjoyed Arielle's snap on poor Shane (boo! Not a big Shane fan) again, she's a fiery little vixen, ain't she? Since I'm a wh*re for reviews, drop me one and let me know what you think. I have endless amounts of electronical hugs. They were 50% off at Wal-Mart, sorry, being silly stupid. Later!


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** As always, I have no copyrights to The Walking Dead, AMC, Norman BadAss Reedus.

**A/N:** I am soooo sorry my lovely readers that it took longer than normal to get this out. I just came off of working 8 days straight and I'm beat. Yours truly really, really likes this chapter. Hope all of you do too. Okay, I'll admit it. I am done writing the story but I haven't wrote all the well, INTIMATE scenes yet. I'm working on them at this moment. I've been having so many problems doing it. Everytime I write a line, I reread it, start giggling like a school girl and then rewrite it. It's so frustrating molding it into what I want it to be. I want every one to read it and then say 'I need a cigarette!'. Anyway, here's a little taste of smutty goodness to come. Enjoy!

To my loving followers:

PurpleDahlia: I'm estatic that you liked the last chapter so much and I really hope you like this one. It's a little better. Also, thanks for your constant reviews. They mean a lot to me and it's the little extra push that I need to get them out that much faster. Thanks for the review, hun.

eloquent dreams: Don't worry sweetie, the story isn't that far along, Merle isn't going to be left behind yet. Thank you so much, my first reviewer!

Noreey: Thank you for taking a liking to my story and I'll try to get them out to you as soon as I can. Little busy at the moment though, enjoy this next one. And thank you for the review, I appreciate every one that I get.

maawwge: I Know! I loved writing the kiss too, I re-wrote it so many times that I was actually starting to get a brain freeze. Well, Daryl alone is pretty good at doing that to me anyway. The craziness hasn't even begun!

Chapter Seven:

~~~~~~~**TWD~~~~~~~**

Arielle wasn't sure exactly how much time had gone by since she had stormed off to her tent to be alone. She felt like such an ass for behaving the way she had in front of the whole group, they probably thought that her time alone in the woods had made her unstable. She had always been so good at controlling her emotions (until lately it seemed), what with being raised (partially) by her a-hole father. As for her functioning family went, Bobby had been the only sibling that was around her alot, hell, he pretty much raised her. Her father had never been abusive towards any of her siblings simply because he didn't hate them.

Their mother, Stephanie, had died from complications when Arielle was born. Her father, Jacob, had always blamed her from taking his wife away from him as he constantly screamed at her whenever a case of beer or an eighth of Jack was involved. He hadn't wanted anymore children after Bobby and Satine.

Arielle smiled as she thought about her brother. He had looked almost nothing like his twin with short spiky red hair, the same red that Arielle shared along with their mother, and had a face covered in freckles. He always had this stupid grin on his face like he knew this big secret that no one else did and always wore this ridiculous green bandana over his unruly red hair. Bobby had been the one family member who would comfort Arielle after fights with their dad. He would usually try to keep her busy like playing baseball with her, taking her to movies and such. He was the one who originally talked Daryl into taking her hunting with them when she was a little older. Daryl hadn't liked it too much at first but it had served as the stepping stone in their intial friendship.

Arielle laughed lightly as she recalled the time when she had broken up with her first boyfriend, Craig, when she was fifteen. Instead of chick flicks and ice cream, Bobby and Daryl had taken her out hunting and got her drunk for the first time. The night had ended badly when the three of them ended up outside of Craig's parents' house, they slit his tires and poured sugar in the gas tank of his precious beat up corvette. Arielle fought back giggles as she recalled Daryl dropping his pants and pissing through the busted driver's side window all over the front seat. Her and Bobby had laughed hysterically from the side lines then they booked it upon hearing yelling from the back porch, leaving Daryl to catch up, tripping over the pants around his ankles as he ran. Her heart ached at the memories that were running through her head. She felt guilty for missing her brother more than her sisters. She couldn't help it, he had been there for her a helluva lot more than Satine and Maria combined.

A shadow passed over the side of her tent, pulling her from her thoughts. The person stopped at the front flap and raised their hand up as if to knock. Arielle bit back a laugh, it's hard to knock on a tent.

"Elle?" Daryl's tenative voice called though the zipped up flap, she smiled at the reassuring sound.

"Come in Daryl." She called back, scooting up into a sitting position, crossing her legs under her. He zipped the tent back up after him and glanced around.

"It's not the Hilton but it works." She commented on him observing her small sleep area.

"I share a tent with Merle, at least it don't smell like ours." Daryl replied as he pulled an empty milk crate from the corner to sit on. He sat down and started chewing his thumbnail, glancing at her questioningly.

"What is it Daryl? What's on your mind?" Daryl quit chewing his poor abused thumbnail and clasped his hands in front of him on his knees, leaning forward.

"Just wanted to see if ya was okay. Ya kinda made a scene out there, it ain't like ya. Well, usually ain't like ya." He said quietly. Arielle ran a hand through her long hair.

"I was just wanting to wait on letting everyone know I'm a doctor until the need arised. I didn't want people to wrap me up in bubble wrap and throw me under lock and key. Don't want to be treated any differently than everybody else." She mumbled, pulling her legs up to her chest and tucked her knees under her chin. Daryl observed her for a moment before climbing off the crate and sat down on her sleeping bag in front of her.

"I could call Merle in here and have him start motherfucking ya like he does with everybody. Keep ya from feelin' special." Arielle shot him a glare then pushed on his chest playfully.

"I'm good."

Daryl reached up and laced his fingers with hers, bringing her palm from his chest up to his cheek causing Arielle's heart to skip a beat. Judging from his expression, she knew there was something else bothering him.

"Are ya still plannin' on goin'?" He whispered before she had a chance to ask him what was wrong. She shook her head.

"I wasn't wanting to from the beginning. I just seen you step forward and I panicked. I couldn't stand the thought of you going. I know it's selfish." Arielle said softly. She rubbed the coarse hair of his goatee with the back of her hand. Daryl's intense gaze locked onto her.

"I wasn't gonna let ya go anyway. Merle just beat me to the yellin' part." He admitted, his voice coming out dangerously low. Arielle smiled at him and leaned forward, bringing herself closer to him.

"That's funny. You think you can stop me from going?" She couldn't resist baiting him.

"The fuck I can't! I'll wrap ya up in ya sleepin' bag and sit on ya for the next few days if I have to." Daryl snapped, raising his voice. Arielle continued to grin at him and rose up to her knees, moving right in front of him. She ran her hands up his chest, feeling Daryl's heart beat a little faster under her hands and brought them behind his neck, tangling them in his hair. She leaned forward, bringing her mouth to his ear.

"How about we wrap up together in my sleeping bag and not leave my tent for a few days?" Arielle whispered in his ear before placing a soft kiss on his neck, below his ear. A low growl came from deep within Daryl's chest, he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her roughly onto his lap. Arielle couldn't stop the blush that crept along her cheeks when Daryl pulled her down to straddle him. He kissed her firmly once before pulling away, rubbing his knuckles along one of her redden cheeks.

"I love it when ya do that." He said, distracting her from staring intently at his mouth, wanting his lips back on hers.

"What?"

"When ya blush, it lights up ya face even more and ya eyes almost sparkle. It's beautiful." Daryl replied.

"That was almost poetic of you Daryl." She smiled at the redness that crept onto his face as well. She must've embarrassed him.

"Well, don't be gettin' use to it. I ain't gonna be runnin' around after ya like a lost puppy in front of everyone." He said roughly. Arielle shook her head at his hopelessness.

"We can't have that now, can we?" She teased, bringing her face down to his and lightly brushed her lips against his. He moved his head forward to kiss her deeper but she moved hers back slightly to tease him. She did it again and this time, Daryl actually grunted at her, causing her to chuckle.

"Stop teasin'. I never took ya to be a cruel woman." He warned, moving his face up to try again which she dodged once more.

"It keeps things lively." She replied quietly, leaning down to finally give him what they both wanted. They were only a few inches apart, Arielle carefully snuck her right hand beneath Daryl's shirt. When his lips claimed hers, she locked her legs around his hips and scratched at Daryl's upper back, not hard enough to actually hurt but enough to make him hiss against her mouth. He released an unsteady breath.

"Ya little tease." Daryl breathed out before kissing her hard and wrapped one hand tightly in her hair, preventing her from pulling away, not that she had any inclination of doing that anyway. Arielle's lips moved against his as she wrapped both her arms around Daryl's neck. She felt that slow warming sensation blooming again in her stomach as she shifted on his lap to straighten out her back, getting more comfortable. When she moved, Daryl breathed in unsteadily again at the friction her movement caused against his lap, making his blood boil. He wrapped an arm around her waist to keep her from falling backwards and quickly flipped Arielle onto her back. She gasped in surprise at her sudden altitude change, opening her eyes to see Daryl hovering over her, taking in her flushed face. He gave her a quick smile before returning his mouth to hers, causing Arielle to completely forget everything around her except the feeling of Daryl's lips on hers, the feel of his weight on her. Arielle parted her lips, sending him an invitation that he quickly accepted. As his tongue darted into her mouth, she trailed her hand down his back and slipped it under his shirt, tracing his skin with her fingertips, commiting the feel of his warm skin to memory. Daryl grabbed her hand from his back and pinned her arms above her head. He pulled away to kiss her jawline then moved down her neck. Arielle whimpered when he nipped the skin of her neck causing him to laugh. As he sucked the sensitive skin of her neck below her ear, his free hand traced down the contours of her shoulder and his knuckles lightly brushed the side of her breast, forcing her to gasp quietly and her body to shudder at the soft caress. Daryl's hand moved to the hem of her shirt, playing with it between his fingers. Arielle was burning for his touch and was growing impatient with his antics. She bucked her hips up to force his hand under her shirt, relief coursing through her as she felt his hand gently massage her stomach before slowly creeping higher. Arielle's breath hitched and unknowingly dug her nails into Daryl's other hand when she felt his fingertips graze the lining of her bra.

"Who's teasing who now?" She breathed, her voice becoming raspy with desire. Daryl smiled against her neck.

"Don't act like ya don't like it." He responded, shifting himself downward so he could kiss the exposed skin of her chest. He slipped his hand under her bra, cupping her breast and gently rolled her nipple between his fingers. Arielle moaned loudly, tilting her head back against her pillow and arched her back up, wanting more of his rough, calloused hands on her. Daryl continued kissing down her chest and roughly pushed her bra and shirt up, completely exposing her chest to him. She felt a spasm of nervousness course through her insides, she couldn't help but feel self concious at being exposed for him to see. Daryl felt her stiffen up under him. He raised his head to look up at her nervous, flushed face.

"Knock it off, girl.' He growled, running his hand up her chest to cup her face, 'Ya sexy as hell. Don't make me have to tell ya again."

At the sound of his rough 'That's final' voice and commanding words, some of her tension melted away. Daryl bent down and kissed the space between her breasts, never breaking eye contact with her. She found it to be incredibly erotic. Daryl turned his attention to her breast, giving it a squeeze before slipping her nipple into his mouth and running his tongue along it. He continued to suck and tease her breast with his wonderfully amazing tongue while he toyed with her other with his free hand. His ministrations had her panting, her breaths coming out in harsh bursts. She grinded her hips against his lower stomach, not being able to control her movements. Arielle's hands were still bound and she was pulling, trying to free herself from his grasp. She was finally able to due to Daryl's lack of concentration and the fact that he didn't care anymore, he wanted her to touch him. Upon releasing her hands, one flew to tangle up in his hair while her other grasped her pillow tightly, slightly shoving it to her face to muffle her moans.

Daryl had never seen anything so sexy as the redhead writhing underneath him, biting her lip as she continued to grind and arch herself up against him. Daryl had never wanted anyone more than he wanted Arielle right now, moving under him as he imagined pushing her to her limit and he yearned to hear her scream his name. He felt himself harden even more just thinking it. Almost as if she could read his mind, she arched her back again, pressing his mouth harder to her breast. He bit her nipple gently, eliciting a harsh shudder from her and she moaned his name.

"Oh, Daryl..mmm..."

Just hearing her moan his name tore away his final shred of restraint that he had been clinging to. He began to kiss his way lazily down her stomach only to lick his way back up. Daryl lightly blew against her damp skin causing her to shudder and goosebumps to appear in his wake, he smiled to himself. He moved back down her body, kissing and nipping around her belly button. He lifted his hand and started to work on unbuckling her belt. Hearing Daryl pull her jeans zipper down, Arielle's eyes flew open and she stiffened up. Daryl sighed obnoxiously and looked up at her with lust filled eyes.

"I already told ya..."

"It's not that." She said quietly, pulling her bra and top back down before sitting up. Daryl wasn't able to keep his snort of annoyance at bay, he was just a man after all.

"What's wrong?" Arielle shifted uncomfortably on the sleeping bag.

"It's embarrassing. You'll laugh at me." She replied, worry thick in her voice, catching Daryl's attention. He scooted closer toward her and wrapped an arm around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder.

"I swear I won't." He whisperd in her ear, causing her to shiver. Arielle's eyes darted around the tent, anywhere but at him. She couldn't look at when she told him.

"You better not. It's just that, well...I,' She stumbled over her words, trying to find a way to not feel like such a dork. 'Okay, it's just that I've never, you know, done 'IT' before."

She quickly turned her gaze to Daryl, waiting for his response. He just stared at her.

"Hello? Did you hear me?" She asked impatiently. Daryl leaned back a bit.

"Seriousy?" He asked, disbelif evident in his voice. Arielle tried to pull away from him but he held onto her tightly.

"See, this is why I didn't wanna say anything." Arielle snapped, trying to pry his hands off of her waist. She was so embarrassed, she had to get away from him.

"Stop it Elle. Ya just surprised me is all. I just figured that a beautiful, sexy woman like ya would've had to fight men away with a stick." Daryl explained, kissing her neck lightly. Arielle swatted at him.

"Hey, it's not from a lack of guys trying. It's because... oh shit! Nevermind, let's pretend that I didn't just speak." Arielle blushed furiously which of course, sparked his attention even more.

"What? What were ya gonna say?" He asked, curiousity gnawing at him.

"No, it's stupid." She snapped.

"Well, ya gotta tell me now. Ya brought it up and ya know I'm a stubborn man." She turned to look at him once more, sighing loudly.

"It's gonna chase you away." She insisted.

"Arielle!" Hearing Daryl use her full name alerted her to the fact that he was starting to get mad and she reallly wasn't in the mood to fight with him.

"Fine.' She huffed, turning around on her butt to face him. 'The truth is that I never went to bed with anyone because well, none of them were you." Arielle admitted quietly and mumbling her words out quickly, keeping her eyes downwards and absently picked at a loose thread on her sleeping bag.

She was too terrified to look up and witness Daryl's reaction. A tense silence filled the tent around them as Arielle waited, worried he was going to start laughing at her ridiculous convictions that she had clung to for so long. She finally sneaked a glance under her eyelashes at him.

Daryl couldn't believe what he just heard Arielle tell him, that she had never had sex with anyone because she wanted him instead. Her confession tugged tightly at his heart and he couldn't keep himself from smiling. A strange sense of instinctual pride (and maybe a little smugness) washed over him at learning that she had been saving herself for him, it's too bad that it had taken a zombie apocalyse to finally bring them together. The pride and smugness faded as quickly as it came and was replaced with a sense of gnawing guilt.

Here was Arielle, she had spent her whole existence in celibacy, waiting on Daryl to finally wake up and smell the mutual attraction. Then there was himself, who had not only been with other women since his own realization about his feelings for Arielle and during her extended absence from his life but also before all this, dated her own sister. Daryl, at one time, thought that he was in love with Satine but came to realize that he was in love with the idea of her. He wouldn't deny that the main reason was that she had been smoking hot. After awhile though, it wasn't enough to cover up the fact that she was vindictive. Not to mention, harsh towards Arielle sometimes, who was the least deserving person of Satine's cruelty that he knew. All Arielle had ever wanted was acceptance from her and Satine just threw it back in her face. Daryl wasn't an idiot either, he knew that Satine was flinging her ass around the county to other men. Part of him just didn't want to accept it. A much larger part felt as if maybe there was something wrong with him that made her want to cheat so thoroughly.

Mentally shaking himself out of the past, Daryl focused on the redhead in front of him. Her eyes were on him, wide and expectant, glistening slightly with unshed tears. He felt horrible, here Arielle just admitted this huge secret to him and he zoned out and took a trip down memory lane. Arielle looked around and began to pull herself away from him to stand up but his hands shot forward and grasped hers tightly.

"Sorry. I had an ADD moment." He explained while rubbing his thumbs along the back of her hands. Arielle simply nodded, not looking at him.

"Hey, I'm talkin' here. Pay attention." He ribbed, trying to pull her gaze back to him which worked.

"I'm no choir boy as ya know. I've been with others before but if it means anythin', I've never wanted any woman as much as I want ya." Daryl confessed, locking eyes with her, smiling when his words brought another blush to her face.

"Ultimate pick up line of all time." She mumbled, looking down at their entwined hands. Feeling bristled from her comment, Daryl released her hands and quickly wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her roughly back onto his lap. Arielle released a squeal of surprise at his sudden action.

"C'mon Elle. Ya've known me forever. Have I ever lied to ya?" He questioned her. Arielle squinted and pursed her lips as she thought back.

"Well, there was that one time when I was eighteen, I molested you at my house after cleaning your wounds from a bar fight and you..." Daryl interrupted her, slightly annoyed.

"I already explained that. Seriously." Arielle bit down lightly on her lip before returning her gaze to him.

"No."

"Then it ain't no pick up line. It's true." He stated firmly, giving her ass a hard slap before resting his hands on her hips.

Arielle smiled. "I can see that the butt slappings are becoming a trend."

Daryl ran his hands along her hips gently before moving them back to give her behind a firm squeeze.

"What can I say? I'm an assman." He replied, his hands lingering on her backside.

"Okay, that is never happening. I don't play that way. It's an exit, not an entrance." She laughed at Daryl's incredibly confused expression. His eyebrows shot up and he laughed, finally getting her sexual joke.

"Real funny, Mason. I meant I like a nice, firm ass much like yours." He corrected, lightly rubbing her ass through her jeans. She sighed softly, leaning her forehead against his.

"Ok, no more heavy today. It's getting too serious around here lately." She said, wrapping her hands around the back of his neck and kissed him firmly.

"Just one more thing." Dary said against her lips then pulled back to look up at her.

"Elle, as much as I may want to throw ya down and run the Dixon train on ya...' He paused, waiting on Arielle to finish giggling from his words. 'I'm not gonna rush ya. Whenever ya ready, just let me know."

Arielle smiled widely, nodding. She gave him a deep, passionate kiss, scratching her nails lightly at the back of his neck. Daryl moaned against her mouth.

"Quickly run, knock people over if ya have to, to let me know."

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

It wasn't until later that day that Arielle had learned that Merle had volunteered to join on the supply run, surprising her greatly. When she confronted him about it, he merely shrugged his shoulders and said:

"Can't have little Daryl losin' his new play thing."

She had to exert a lot of self restraint not to hide animal droppings in Merle's sleeping bag that night. Not that it would really affect the smell of their tent. As much as she loved Merle, she was dying to tell him that it was time for a bath. Oddly enough even though he spent so much time in the woods and working, she noticed Daryl never really smelled bad. Mostly he smelled like a mixture of dirt, woods, sweat (not b.o.) and something else. Something Arielle was never fully able to put her finger on, something uniquely Daryl.

Arielle was thankful that no one treated her any differently when she joined everyone for dinner that night besides an awkward glance from Shane and a searching look from Dale. She just smiled at the older man and lightly patted his shoulder when she walked over to the dimly lit fire with her dinner in hand. Tonight's Special: pork and beans with a scoop of canned fruit cocktail. Dinner of Champions.

Sitting between Glenn and Dale, Arielle sneaked a glance over to the other fire where Daryl was seated with his brother along with Ed and Carol Peleiter and Sofia, their daughter. Arielle really liked the soft spoken young girl but didn't get a lot of chances to interact with her or her mother. Ed was always keeping them around him in case he wanted someone to order around or get him something. As she scanned the small group her attention drifted to Sofia who just happened to look up at the same time Arielle glanced at her. Sofia sent her a shy smile before quickly casting her eyes downwards before her father took any notice of her. Arielle couldn't keep the bittersweet smile off her face. The young girl reminded her so much of herself at that age, it broke her heart seeing Sofia terrified to socialize in any way with others. Pushing those thoughts out of her mind, her eyes slid back to Daryl, who was facing her direction. They kept shooting each other glances on and off throughout dinner, occasionally throwing a quick smile into the mix to shake things up. She had asked him to join her over at the other fire which he had blantantly refused. Arielle hated how it felt like the cafeteria in high school all over again. Different cliques at separate tables. Never changing, never meeting.

After dinner, she called it an early night, wishing everyone a good night before heading off to her tent. She wasn't that tired but she felt like playing with Daryl, not even sending him a slight good night glance.

Arielle changed into a tank top and sleep shorts then climbed under the covers, rolling around to try and find a comfortable position. Finally settling in, she doused the light on her lantern and waited, seeing if Daryl had taken the bait.

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

Arielle was awoken by the sound of her tent flap unzipping and someone stepping inside. Half asleep, she panicked and grabbed her shoe next to her. She chucked it with all her might at the approaching figure. The shoe connected with a loud _**thunk**_!

"What the fuck?"

Arielle shook herself awake and turned the knob of her lantern up slightly, casting a light glow through the tent. Her hands covering her mouth when she recognized her intruder. Daryl plopped onto her sleeping bag by her feet, rubbing the side of his head gingerly. He shot her a dark glare.

"Oh god, Daryl, I'm so sorry." She apologized and rolled onto her knees to check his face. Nothing but a red, angry mark.

"Why the hell did ya assault me? I don't think that walkers know how to unzip tents yet." He growled still lightly rubbing his battle wound.

"I'm sorry, I was half asleep and I freaked. If I had know it was you, I would've thrown something much heavier." She said, cracking a wide smile. Daryl just grunted at her before shooting the shoe a dirty look, kicking it across the vinyl floor.

"It's not my shoe's fault." Daryl moved his glare back onto her.

"Ya know, for someone who was out cold, ya have pretty damn good aim." He snapped. Arielle climbed out from her blankets and scooted down to him, snuggling his side.

"Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?" She asked sweetly, looking up at him with innocent eyes. A slight smirk crept across his face, his bright blue eyes lit up mischievously before burning into hers. He leaned forward, shifting his weight onto his hands and knees, hovering over her. She had to lean backwards onto her pillow to keep from head butting him. Daryl positioned himself over top of her, not putting any weight against her.

"I can think of a few ways that ya could try." He whispered, leaning in closer to her face. Arielle met him halfway, fully pressing her lips against his. Daryl shifted his weight to one arm, using his free hand to softly run his fingers along her exposed collar bone. Arielle giggled, pulling back from their kiss and wiggled out from underneath of him, shooting an innocent smile at him before diving under the covers.

"And just what do ya think ya doing?" He drawled out slowly, letting the sentence drag out, emphasizing the 'think' as he lifted the blanket to peer inside. She poked the top of her head out, the blanket resting just below her eyes.

"Waiting for you to come find me." She replied playfully before diving back under. She heard him unlace his boots, dropping them next to the sleeping bag before climbing in next to her. Arielle nuzzled her face against his neck, taking in his scent as Daryl pulled her against him.

"Found ya." Arielle laughed softly.

"Yes, you did." He tucked his free arm behind his head and stared up at the top of the tent.

"Can't stay all night unless ya want the rest of camp to start gosspin' like a bunch of ol' ladies." He said gruffly, she nodded against his neck.

"I get it but I think that ship has already sailed." His hand had been trailing lightly up and down her arm, pausing as he turned his head to look down at her.

"Somebody say somethin' to ya?" He growled, a note of possessiveness gripping his voice.

"People aren't stupid Daryl, no matter how much you think they are." Daryl continued to look at her.

"Ya didn't answer my question. Did somebody say somethin' to ya?" He repeated. Arielle was beginning to get annoyed with him. She pushed herself up onto her elbow.

"So what if they did? Why are you so worried about people finding out about us? You embarrassed of me?" She questioned testily. Daryl scowled at her, pulling himself up to only pin her back down to her pillow.

"What would ever give ya a stupid idea like that?" He asked staring down at her. She couldn't help but be a little upset with herself, she knew that wasn't the problem. Daryl had always been really awkward when it came to relationships. She fiddled with the collar of his shirt before answering.

"I don't know. I just hate having to keep myself distanced from you so much. I hate the sneaking around." Arielle whispered, unable to meet his intense gaze. Daryl lifted her chin with a finger, leaning down so their faces were only a few inches from touching. Arielle's breath hitched in her throat at the firm resolve that was etched on his face.

"Now, I'm only gonna say this once so listen up. I could never be embarrassed of ya, if anythin', it oughta be the other way 'round." Arielle opened her mouth to protest but he quickly shushed her.

"Let me finish." She reluctantly closed her mouth, nodding him on.

"I ain't no great catch. I don't understand why ya waited for me to smarten up but I'm glad ya did." Daryl paused, contemplating his words carefully.

"I'm awkward as hell at this stuff and I know I can be an ass at times but I don't want ya thinkin' for a second that I am embarrassed of ya or that I don't care about ya, ever. I never cared for anyone before like I do ya. I'm never lettin' ya go, made that mistake before, unless ya want me to. So, Elle, that bein' said, ya gonna stop all this self doubtin' bullshit and realize that havin' ya with me is the best thing that I coulda ever hoped for?" Daryl finished, wiping a stray tear from Arielle's face that had escaped. She nodded quickly, not trusting her voice in the slightest. Her heart was beating painfully in her chest and a lump had formed in her throat from hearing his words. She couldn't believe that Daryl had said all that he did, that wasn't like him, she was elated that he had though.

Arielle forcefully grabbed Daryl's face between her hands and hungrily kissed him. Daryl ran his hand through her hair before cupping the back of her head, pressing his mouth harder against hers. Arielle pulled away, needing air.

"Ya might wanna stop now unless ya changed ya mind on the whole 'not yet' business. I'm dyin' to hear how loud I can make ya squeal." He whispered against her ear, pulling a soft shudder from her with his words.

"You keep making it hard for me to say no." She replied, her voice trembling slightly. He smirked slightly then softly trailed his tongue along her bottom lip before nipping lightly.

"Then don't."

Arielle shook her head hard, trying to regain her composure which was very difficult with how intently Daryl was staring down at her, his smouldering eyes burning her alive from the inside out. She pushed him away lightly against his chest.

"You're gonna be the death of me, Daryl Dixon." She breathed out slowly then laughed at catching sight of the slightly annoyed expression on his face. He rolled onto his back again, pulling her tightly against his chest.

"You mad at me now?" She asked, pulling his gaze back to her.

"Course I ain't. I'm just bein' a typical guy, ya know. Ya can't blame a man for tryin'."

Settling in, Arielle let the beating of his heart against her ear lull her back to sleep.

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

Another one done! I really liked this one and I know this chapter was pretty much spent in Arielle's tent but I felt like the story needed one really good chapter of them admitting their feelings and getting shit aired out before moving on. From now on, my story will be following the series canon and I sorry to the readers who don't like that but it's just the way I want the story to go. The next chapter has a HUGE twist, sorry but I gotta throw a teaser in there. Don't worry, I'll get it out within the next few days. Please review and let me know what you thought of this one. Later my beloved readers!


	8. Author's Note

Auther's Note:

Hello my lovlies! Just a quick author's note for everyone. I was unfortunately in a car accident this last Saturday leaving the dreaded In Laws' Family reunion (I know, couldn't of happened before). My right wrist has a nasty sprain and I'm not going to be able to type for another week or so. I talked my niece into writing this for me but according to her, there aren't enough M&Ms and Dorito's in the state to serve as enough bribe money to type my story for me =-} Anyway, I'll get the next chapter out as soon as I can even if I have to hunt and peck the entire chapter with one finger. As always, I heart you guys and please check back soon for the next chapter!

Loves,

Moi


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer**: I don't own The Walking Dead, AMC or the scrumptious Norman Reedus.

**A/N**: I'm still alive people! I'm soooo sorry it took me so long to get this to you! My wrist is finally not aching like a bitch even though I'm sure it will after typing this up. I'm sorry about the delay, I got caught up in something else. I just seen Mr. Norman 'Droolworthy' Reedus' movies "The Conspirator" and "Gossip" a few days ago and I started having more ideas of stories buzzing in my head and I started to get caught up in that. I should know better by now not to get distracted by Norman's incredible awesomeness but I can't help it. By the way, not feeling the love people. I only got a couple reviews for my last chapter and I thought that people would've loved that one. Anyway, thanks for checking out my story and staying with it this long.

To my lovely reviewers:

Noreey: Thanks for your concern with my wrist, it has healed faster than I thought it would.

eloquent dreams: Thanks for your reviews as always and thank you for your concern, my wrist is much better. Also, I'm sorry but Merle is getting the boot. I know ya love him but he's gotta go. Hope you enjoy this one though.

JavaNut: Thank you for taking an interest in my story and I'm glad that you like the way I write the ever lovable Daryl Dixon and my very own Arielle. Enjoy this next chapter.

PurpleDahlia: It's okay, we all get crazy busy too. I just got a different shift at work and it suuucckkks! Really cuts into my me time. Anyway, glad to hear that you liked the last one and I hope that your knee heals quickly too.

Chapter Eight:

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

The morning of the supply run came all to soon for everyone as they all gathered around the leaving group to say their tearful and tense 'good lucks'. The group included Andrea, Morales, Glenn, Jacqui, T-Dog (a large black man that Arielle had not had too many chances to speak to, he avoided her alot but she had a feeling that he was wary of Merle and Daryl) and of course, Merle. She had barely spoken to him since he volunteered to go and she felt horrible for behaving so. She knew that he had only done it to take the pressure off her, not that King Shane would let her go now anyway. Everytime that she was in his vincinity, the ex-cop would take off like a bat outta hell.

After wishing the others good luck, she headed over to Merle, who was standing away from everybody else with the exception of Daryl. The older Dixon was bent over tying his boots, not acknowledging her presence. Arielle sighed loudly and ran a hand through her hair.

"You know I got a bad feeling about you going." She said quietly, kicking at the dirt with the toe of her boot. Merle stood up and adjusted the bag on his shoulder before staring down at her intently. She had a very hard time looking him in the eyes. Worry was pressing down on her tightly, suffocating her to the point of just football tackling him and hoping that she knocked some sense into his thick skull.

"So, I'm suppose to just sit back down and twiddle my thumbs because ya got some dumb 'bad feelin'?' He scoffed, shaking his head before moving to head down to the soon-to-be-departing group. 'Ya know me better than that, girlie."

Arielle shot Daryl a pleading look to back her up but he just shrugged his shoulders. She shook her head in annoyance and jogged over to catch up with Merle. She latched onto his forearm, momentarily pausing the man.

"Merle, please.' She pleaded, staring straight up at him, determination etched all over her face. 'For me, for Daryl. You two are all the family I have left. Stop being so goddamn pigheaded and for once in your fucking chauvnistic life, listen to me, please!"

He just continued to stare down at her before shaking his head in refusal.

"Ain't gonna happen Ellie. Now, ya keep my baby brother occupied til I get back. I know that ya know a few ways of doin' that." He cracked at her, trying to get a laugh out of the upset redhead. Her mouth pulled up slightly at one corner and gently shook her head. Merle went to walk away but was halted by Arielle throwing her arms around his waist, giving him a tight squeeze. He wrapped one arm around her shoulder and briefly squeezed before pulling back and giving her hair a quick ruffle. She swatted his hand away.

"Ok, being that I'm obviously not gonna be able to change that mushy thing inside that thick skull of yours, so listen up. Stay quiet, no loud voices, don't use your gun unless ABSOLUTELY necessary, stick to your knife as much as possible and Merle, please, please stay out of your stash. I need you to keep a clear head, you can go on a three day bender for all I care _**when**_ you get back.' She demanded, pulling a smirk and a laugh from Merle. 'Now promise me all these things or I'll break your fucking legs now and you won't be going anywhere anytime soon." She balled her fists up and crossed her arms, staring determinedly up at the much bigger man. Merle laughed loudly to himself, now here was the little redheaded spitfire that he had been missing lately.

"Ok, if that'll get ya outta my ass, so be it." Merle swore, making a scout's honor with his hand. Arielle nodded, giving him one last hard look before turning and heading back to Daryl, who was watching the exchange back at their tent. The two brothers exchanged a nod before Merle quietly left with the group.

An hour later, Arielle was still sitting on the stump she plopped on when Merle left. Still staring into the small fire burning in front of her. She had a million and one thoughts flying through her head. She didn't believe a single fucking word Merle had sworn on but there wasn't much she could've done to stop him. Once that stupid, stubborn son of a bitch got something in his head, there was no stopping him. Even if it was a suicide mission into a undead infested city for some canned goods and toilet paper. Arielle started slightly rocking back and forth on her stump, her stomach clenching painfully as she imagined what hell hole her 'might as well be' brother was walking into.

Daryl, not being able to deal with a quiet Arielle, stood up abruptly and headed to his tent. He grabbed a few things that he would need before heading to Arielle's tent. A few moments later, he returned to her side, carrying a bag with some supplies, her bow and quiver and loudly dropped the bag at her feet, startling her out of her reverie. She asked him what he was doing as she took the bow and quiver out of his hands. Daryl threw his crossbow over his shoulder before holding out his hand to her.

"We're goin' huntin' for a few days til Merle gets back. I ain' watchin' ya mope for the comin' days and theres no point in arguin' because ya goin'." He interrupted her protests before she could voice them. She stared at him for a moment before conceding, letting Daryl pull her to her feet. Daryl tightly squeezed her shoulder before leading her into the woods.

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

Arielle's feet couldn't carry her fast enough as she rushed back to camp. She jumped up, dodging the line of cans that served as their low-tech alarm system. She couldn't wait to get back to take a bath, her and Daryl had spent the last few days hunting to keep her mind off Merle and it had worked but now, she couldn't stand smelling like a bum a single moment longer. Daryl had noticed her extreme discomfort and conceded to letting her head back early. He had promised to be only an hour or so behind her. Upon reaching the campsite, she greeted a few people on her way back to her tent. She slowed up when she noticed Shane, who was cleaning his gun by the camp fire. He seemed to be a million miles away.

"Penny for your thoughts, Shane?" She questioned, pulling his attention away from his gun. He blanched upon seeing her, his face taking on a complete bone white shade. He quickly glanced behind her, scanning the area.

"Something wrong?"

He stood up and rubbed his head before asking. "Where's Daryl?"

She watched him, taking in his nervous face and twitchy behavior before answering.

"I wanted to head back early to clean up. He'll be here shortly." He turned his gaze to the ground and took a deep breath, almost as to breathe a sigh of relief.

"Shane, what is it?" She demanded, fear building a nest in her chest. Her mind kept looping around the same thought, that something had happened to Merle. He glanced around once more before turning back to her.

"It's Merle."

Arielle's stomach clenched and her knees buckled, sending her to the ground. Shane ran over to her side and carefully placed a hand on her shoulder. She took a couple of deep breaths and squared her shoulders then looked up into Shane's brown eyes.

"What happened?" He proceded to explain to her Merle's behavior in Atlanta and a quick summary of how the group became trapped in a department store before finally escaping in a cube van. He also told her about Glenn and his antics with a stolen Mustang, pointing out the red beauty to her. Even with the unbearable pain in her chest for the loss of Merle, she couldn't suppress the light laugh at her friend's stupidness.

Taking another deep breath, Arielle shook off Shane's hand and stood up. She awkwardly paced in spot, contemplating what to do about the whole fucked up situation. Daryl was going to flip shit when he got back and Arielle didn't know how to handle it. Where was a tranquilizer gun when you needed it?

"You know this is gonna end badly. Daryl won't be as calm and understanding in any sense of the word like I am." She stated, pushing her hair out of her eyes to glance at Shane. His eyes darted around nervously around before coming to rest squarely on her.

"Well, that's where we're gonna need you, to keep him calm."

She laughed coldly at the comment, as if she was going to be able to control Daryl at all. Part of her wanted to punch whoever it was that handcuffed Merle to begin with. Speaking of which...

"Who was the asshole that chained him to that pipe to begin with?" She asked stiffly. Shane's eyes darted behind her causing her to turn her head.

"That'd be me." A voice called from behind her. Arielle froze, unable to believe her eyes. She half ran towards the approaching man, pausing in front of him, her mind was running a mile a minute.

"Motherfucking hell! Rick? Rick Grimes? As I live and breathe, I never expected to see your scrawny ass again." She exclaimed, gazing surprisedly at the new man in camp. His ever calm blue eyes flitted across her face in shock, surprised as well.

"Arielle? Seriously? Well, things just keep getting better and better for me." He replied, his smile thick in his voice as he spoke and moved forward. Arielle launched herself at her friend, pulling him into a big hug. He lifted her up and briefly spun her around before placing her back on her feet. Arielle smiled widely at him, taking in his face. This was definitely one person that she figured that she'd never see again. After taking in his visage, unable to believe her eyes, she shoulder bumped him almost checking to make sure he was real.

"Wait, you know each other?" Shane asked, confusion lacing his voice as he joined them in the happy reunion.

"Yeah, I was doing my residency at the local hospital in King County and I was often tossed into the ER to help out. Rick here, had brought in a stolen car jacker who had ended up crashing said car. Rick was assigned to him and well, we bullshitted for a while since I was pulling a double. Kept him from getting bored, brought him endless cups of nasty hospital coffee. We bumped into each other alot there and I sometimes came down to the station to shoot the breeze with him. I wasn't from around the area and Rick was so chivalrious to extend a hand of friendship towards an outsider." Rick laughed, shaking his head at her comment.

"Hand of friendship? I couldn't escape you, I made the mistake of telling you where I worked." He joked, pointing a finger at Arielle which she slapped away.

"I'm sure the free donuts and coffee I brought with me had nothing to do with it. Bet you're wishing I have a box of apple fritters hidden in my tent right now. Besides, you were a police officer in King County, I didn't need a private eye to hunt you down or anything." She retorted. Shane eyed the two suspiciously, his best friend looked very comfortable, _**too**_ comfortable around the perky redhead.

"I was your partner and I never met her. You never mentioned her either." Shane remarked, never hearing his long time friend mention the girl before. Rick glanced over to his friend, smiling.

"Well, she's a nice girl and was working to finish her residency. I didn't want you turning on that Walsh charm and distracting her from finishing. I was doing her a favor." Rick replied, lightly slapping his friend on the shoulder. Arielle mentally rolled her eyes.

'As if.' She thought.

Rick's comment brought a small smile to Shane's face. The man did consider himself a Don Juan.

"He's got a point." Shane said, shooting Arielle a smile. She mentally rolled her eyes again. She turned her attention back to Rick, she couldn't believe that she had another connection to her past still in this fucked up world. Her mind drifted back to all the hours of shooting shit with Rick down at the police station over the wonderful Krispie Kreams and coffee. Her telling him about her family, her job... Daryl. Rick telling her about his quickly growing boy and his young wife. Arielle's thoughts trailed off to their conversations, her brain clicking the microscopic pieces of a puzzle together. Her eyes locked onto Rick's blue ones.

"Oh my god, Lori, Carl,' her hands covered her mouth, 'I never made the connection. I was suppose to come over for dinner that Sunday but, I told you, I had to leave for my dad's funeral. I was suppose to meet them, I can't believe it, have you... do you know... they're here!" She was on the verge of tears. Her brain hazily pulled one memory in particular out. Rick had pulled a recent photo of his family out from his wallet. Arielle remembered how she had thought that Lori was so beautiful and Carl had been so cute, his pale face covered in freckles, a little more than her own. Her thoughts flowed to Lori, who had thought she lost her husband. Carl, sweet little Carl, who always talked about his father in a captivating awe. They wouldn't have to suffer anymore.

Rick nodded, the smile returning to his face brightly. "We got back yesterday afternoon. I can't believe it myself."

Arielle couldn't suppress the smile on her face. However, it faded as her thoughts drifted back to the current problem with Daryl. A lump formed in her chest thinking about how broken he was going to be and how badly he was going to react. Rick must've been thinking along the same lines as her own mind.

"So, Arielle, this is the same Daryl that you told me about?" He asked, glancing between her and Shane.

"Yeah, he's got a mighty temper.' She replied, walking over to Rick. 'He'll be back soon and I wanna clean up before the shit storm begins."

She pulled Rick to her for another quick hug.

"It's great seeing you again, Rick." She said, pulling away and giving him a quick smile before heading to her tent.

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

Arielle couldn't help but fidget. Her nerves were tight as a coiled wire. She sat in front of the fire by the Dixon's tent, waiting on Daryl to return. She felt slightly better after washing up down at the quarry but she wasn't able to push Merle and Daryl out of her mind for long. What was Daryl gonna do? Would he hurt somebody? What if he went after Rick? Or T-Dog, who dropped the handcuff key? And what about Merle? Was he alive, would anyone be willing to go back for him? Probably not, everyone here hated the man. The questions flew through her mind as she stared into the fire, willing herself to calm down. She had to stay cool, she needed to keep focused on the problem at hand not letting her own fear smother her. It seemed that her body had different plans as her mind continued to drift along this line of thoughts. Arielle felt a spasm of fear clench at her guts, fear for Merle, trapped on that roof, exposed to the elements and God knows what else. Fear for Rick, who was most likely going to be on the receiving end of Daryl's wrath. Daryl... Arielle didn't know what to feel with him. On one hand, she felt so horrible for him, his brother was left behind in the heat of the moment, the fleeing group might as well rang a goddamn dinner bell before they took off. Yet, at the same time, for the first time in her life, Arielle was scared of Daryl, well, not so much of him but what he might do.

A child's scream tore through the air, violently tearing Arielle from her internal battle. She was on her feet and moving faster than she thought possible, pausing only to grab her knife out of her ankle holder. As she ran in the direction of the scream, Lori and Rick appeared at her side, heading along the same path. The former screaming for her son, the three of them finally spotting Carl, Sophia and Jacqui, who dropped to her knees and pointed down the hill through the trees. Lori snatched Carl up fiercely in her arms, scanning him for any sign of bites or scratches. Arielle and Rick continued on meeting up with Shane, Glenn, Dale, Morales and Jim as they moved through some high bushes, entering a small clearing. In the middle was a decomposing male walker who was tearing into the neck of a dead doe, the walker had his back to them so he didn't hear their approach. Arielle's stomach flipped when she noticed the brightly colored arrows in the doe's hindquarters. Anxiety gripped her as she searched through the surrounding woods, she knew Daryl must be nearby and with the walker currently gnawing on his prey, her mind automatically started going through worst case scenarios.

The men began beating on the dead man, pelting the walker with a variety of different weapons before Dale took his head off with an axe. Arielle stepped over the body and watched the tree line, hoping to catch sight of Daryl, hopefully still alive and unharmed. A branch snapped off to her left, her head whipping around at the sound, her heart leaping into her throat. Arielle gripped the knife tighter in her hand while the others raised their assorted weapons, preparing themselves for the possibility of another walker. More snapping and shuffled echoed through the clearing before Daryl popped out from behind the large boulder, crossbow in hand and a look of startled surprise flitted across his face from the cluster of people with their weapons held high in his direction. Arielle's eyes quickly darted over him, checking for any injuries before her heart finally slowed its galloping pace inside her chest. She wanted nothing more than to run over and pull him against her in a crushing embrace but she didn't want to throw him into that kind of spotlight. He still wasn't ready for much PDA. Daryl shot her a curious glance before his eyes traced downward, finally spotting his prey next to the decapitated walker.

"Son of a bitch.' Daryl snapped, stink-eyeing the walker, 'That's my deer!" He strutted over to the walker.

"Look at it, all gnawed on by this filthy,' he gave the walker a hard kick with each word, 'disease bearing' KICK 'motherless' KICK 'poxy' KICK 'bastard!"

Arielle glanced around at the ensemble of men, all of which were fidgeting uncomfortablly and trying to distance themselves from Daryl as much as possible.

Dale gave him a hard look. "Calm down, son. That's not helping." Daryl quickly advanced toward the older man, causing everyone to fidget even more.

"What do ya know bout it, Old Man? Why don't ya take that stupid hat and go back to 'On Golden Pond'?" After pulling the arrows out of his fallen prey, Daryl continued on about his deer while Arielle's mind was racing. Here it was, the dreaded confrontation and she still had no idea how to break the ice gently to him. Daryl grabbed her hand, pulling her back to camp as he called for his missing brother. He placed his crossbow next to the fire ring then scanned the camp again for Merle, she pulled on his hand lightly to catch his attention. Arielle stumbled over what to say to him but Shane, thankfully, took that part off her shoulders.

"Daryl, hey, I need to talk to you." Shane placed his gun back in his jeep before approaching, lightly rubbing his face.

"About what?" He asked while fiddling with the line of dead squirrels on his side. Arielle took a step back, not sure if she wanted to be within swinging distance of him. It's not that she couldn't take a hit but she didn't want Daryl feeling bad about another thing when he came out of his unavoidable anger fit. He looked over at her as she stepped back, confused before turning his attention back to Shane.

"About Merle. There was a ... there was a problem in Atlanta." Shane replied, gaging Daryl's response. Daryl glanced around at everyone before landing on Arielle, his eyes hardening and his back tightened up.

"He dead?" His eyes returned to Shane.

"We're not sure." Shane's cryptic answer only sparked Daryl's anger further more.

"He either is or he ain't!" Daryl snapped, circling around Shane, his voice rising.

Rick, who was standing behind Arielle, stepped forward. She attempted to grab him by his shirt to stop him but he dodged her. Rick sent her a tense half smile before heading into the lions' den.

"No easy way to say this, so I'll just say it." He called out calmly, striding to Daryl's side. Daryl's eyes flickered over him, she knew that he could smell a cop a mile away even out of uniform, a useful Dixon trait.

"Who are ya?"

"Rick Grimes."

Daryl scoffed at his name. "Rick Grimes, ya got something ya want to tell me?"

Arielle winced at Rick's following words, only because he was using what Daryl had dubbed before the 'Officer Piggy Voice'.

"Your brother was a danger to us all, so I handcuffed him to a roof, hooked him to a piece of metal. He's still there."

Arielle spotted T-Dog approaching them, his arms full of logs for the fire. He slowed down upon noticing that Daryl had returned, she wanted to wave her arms in the air and scream for him to run but knowing that wouldn't work, she gave him a small smirk and nod before paying attention again to what was unfolding.

"Ya saying ya handcuffed my brother to a roof and ya left him there?" He hollared, pacing slowly towards Rick. Knowing that shit was about to go down, Arielle stepped forward to put herself between Rick and Daryl but didn't move fast enough. Daryl threw the dead squirrels at Rick then charged at him only to be derailed by Shane slamming into him, knocking him to the ground. Daryl pulled his knife out of its holder at his waist and sat up.

"Watch the knife!" T-Dog called.

Arielle's stomach dropped. "Daryl, don't, please. You're only making it worse!" She cried out, bringing her hands to her face.

Daryl ignored her, taking a swipe or two at Rick, who dodged the swings and pulled the knife out of his hand. Shane grabbed him from behind, successfully putting him into a tight chokehold.

"Shane, please don't hurt him." She called out, inching her way slowly towards them, sidestepping Jim's outstretched hand to stop her.

"Ya best let me go!" Daryl gasped, trying to pull Shane's arm away from his throat. Shane pulled him forcefully to the ground.

"Nah, I think it's better if I don't."

"Chokehold's illegal." Daryl grunted.

"You can file a complaint. Come on, man. We'll keep this up all day." Shane snapped, still forcibly holding Daryl to the ground.

Arielle fought back tears as the men wrestled Daryl into a submissive hold. She hated seeing him like this. He was hurting over his brother and now, he was in a choke hold by Shane, whom Daryl really hated for some reason. Yet at the same time, she knew it was for the best, she didn't want anything happening to Daryl or Rick.

"I'd like to have a calm discussion on this topic. Do you think we can manage that?" Rick asked, dropping to eye level with Daryl.

"Do you think we can manage that?" He reiterated, moving in closer. Daryl hesitated for a few seconds before giving the smallest of nods. Shane released him, forcibly throwing him to the ground which pissed Arielle off.

"What the fuck Shane? He conceded, why don't you just rubbed his nose in the dirt while you're at it?" She snapped, receiving a dirty look from the man. Rick leaned back down to Daryl who was still sprawled on the ground.

"What I did was not on a whim. Your brother does not work and play well with others."

"It's not Rick's fault. I had the key. I dropped it." T-Dog interrupted, pulling all eyes to him. That part of Arielle that wanted T-Dog to run away came flaring back.

"Ya couldn't pick it up?" Daryl asked. A look of unease crossed over T-Dog's face.

"Well, I dropped it in a drain." He admitted sheepishly. Daryl bowed his head, scoffing loudly then pulled himself off the ground.

"If it's supposed to make me feel better, it don't." Daryl replied, flinging dirt and gravel at T-Dog's feet and circled the man like a vulture.

"Well, may this will. Look, I chained the door to the roof so the geeks couldn't get at him with a padlock." T-Dog explained, trying to get Daryl to see the glass as half full.

"It's gotta count for something." Rick piped up. Daryl wiped the tears roughly out of his eyes.

"Hell with all y'all! Just tell me where he is so's I can go get him." He demanded, extreme sadness and utter exhaustion cracking through his voice.

"He'll show you. Isn't that right?" Lori spoke, scaring Arielle. She had forgotten about the audience that had been privy to Daryl's blow up.

"I'm going back." Rick said with a note of finalty in his voice.

Lori climbed up into the camper while Daryl stormed off to his tent to get ready, leaving Arielle to figure out how to talk to him without causing an argument.

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

Once again, I'm so sorry that it took so long to get this out. I promise to have the next one out either tomorrow or the next day tops! Until next time!


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer:** I do not in any way, shape or form own any rights to The Walking Dead, AMC, or the gorgeous man with the facial beauty mark that plays Daryl Dixon.

**Author's Note:** Hey everyone, I was debating on updating tonight. My cat, who was pretty much my Familiar, died yesterday and I've been a wreck all day. I finally decided to distract myself by working on my stories and getting this one updated. It's sad not having him play fighting with my fingers as they move across the keyboard. I want to dedicate this chapter to him. Some might think 'Dedicate? It's just a cat.' but he was a helluva lot more than that to me. This is for you my Chairman Meow. Some of you might get the name. May you have an endless supply of bottle caps to knock off tables and cigarettes box cellophanes to chew on (weird, I know) in Kitty Heaven.

To my loving reviewers:

JavaNut: As always, thanks for the review and I look forward to hearing your your future notes. Also, thanks for your concern, the wrist is pretty much healed now.

Noreey: Not wanting to spoil everything, you'll just have to wait and see. I thank you for your review and I hope you like what I come up with next. Being that at the moment I'm following series canon, it's slightly easy to figure out parts of what's happening next but I'll be changing things here and there.

pink champagne218: Welcome to the party! Thank you so much for the compliments. When it comes to Arielle, she was raised with the Dixons', so she knows a few things about surviving but because of her screwed up family, she still has a vulnerable side. I just wanted to convey how deeply impacted her whole life has been due to finding her other half, her ying, at such a young age. I've always believed that when you find true love, it never truly leaves you, no matter what happens. Sorry, if you read my previous A/Ns, you'd notice that I tend to ramble. Anyway, I'm happy that you like my story and I hope that I continue to write well enough for my amazing readers to enjoy.

Rambling again, enjoy the story!

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

After checking her Beretta to ensure it was fully loaded, Arielle grabbed her bow off her sleeping bag and secured her quiver to her thigh once more before exiting her tent. She squared her shoulders, mentally preparing herself for whatever Daryl threw at her as she made her way over to the newly acquired van that Daryl, T-Dog, Glenn and Rick were using to re-enter Atlanta. Glenn was in the driver's seat, rubbing his hands anxiously on the wheel while T-Dog and Rick were speaking with Dale and Jim over in front of the R.V. Daryl, who had been pacing inside of the van, in a hurry to leave, halted his continuious pacing upon noticing her arrival. His blue eyes skimmed over the bow wrapped around her shoulder and flitted down to her gun strapped on her hip, his scowl deepening even further, at this rate, it was going to be permenately etched into his hard face.

"Ya better be jokin'." He threatened in a low voice as he stood over her, glaring down the distance from up inside the van. Arielle fixed him with her own hard stare before she clamored awkwardly up into the back of the van, silently relieved to be momentarily out of the harsh sun.

"I'm going with you guys. Merle's my family too. It's my fault that he's there to begin with and you are going to need my help with handling him. He's not exactly gonna be walking on sunshine when you get there."

Daryl shook his head, casting his eyes to the floor of the van. "No, Merle will skin me and ya alive if I took ya into the city. I can handle his bitch fit myself." He replied, grabbing her arm and moving them to the back of the van, obviously to lead her out like some minor who snuck into a rated 'R' movie. She pulled her arm out of his grip.

"I'm going and that's final."

Daryl sighed loudly and cracked his neck to the side, getting annoyed. He glanced around, making sure no one was watching their exchange. Feeling satisfied, Daryl brought his hands to the back of her head, sliding his fingers through her hair before cupping her face. He pulled her face, as well as the rest of her, close to him.

"Elle, I need ya to stay here. I don't need no distractions when I'm out there and I won't be able to focus on anythin' but worryin' my ass off about ya. Do ya want me to end up gettin' hurt protectin' your accident prone behind?" He asked softly, staring deep into her eyes, hoping if he asked nicely enough, she would save them both alot of trouble and stay behind for once. He leaned down to her, lightly brushing his lips across her cheekbones and kissed her softly on the sensitive skin below her ear. He pulled back and leaned his forehead against hers, locking eyes with her.

Arielle felt her brain start to fog, his deep blue eyes began to cloud her judgement as they always do. Damn blue eyes. Arielle pulled away from him, taking a step back and gave her head a good shake.

"Of course I don't but you're not pulling that with me, Dixon. Either I'm riding with you or I'm gonna walk there. Your choice." She responded firmly, crossing her arms over her chest and gave him that all too familiar 'I've said my peace and now I'm done talking, so get the fuck over it' glare.

Daryl's jaw clenched tightly as she returned her glare with one of his own. He knew how stubborn Arielle could be, he also knew that it wasn't beyond her to stay true to her threat of walking into Atlanta.

"Fuckin' shit!" He yelled, giving the side of the van a solid punt, successfully frightening the shit out of Glenn, who had not even noticed the two of them in the back until that moment.

"If ya so hellbent on gettin' yaself killed, I can't stop ya." Daryl shot her one last glare then headed to the front, smashing his foot against the van's horn.

"C'mon, let's go!" Daryl hollared out the back, receiving a glare from Shane who was speaking with Rick at the moment.

The ride into the city was very uncomfortable to say the least. Daryl was steadily ignoring Arielle, who was seated next to the fuming man. Instead, he spent most of the ride staring down T-Dog, who was obviously working very hard to ignore the blue eyes that were burning a hole into the side of his head. She felt bad for him, knowing that he was sorry about dropping the handcuff key and knowing that The Dixon Temper would not be letting up anytime in the near future. Whenever she caught T-Dog's glance, she would give him a small smile, silently conveying that she wasn't mad at him. He would lightly nod at her, too worried about riling Daryl up to do or say anything more than that.

"He better be alright. That's my only word on the matter." Daryl said threateningly to T-Dog, breaking the pregnant silence in the van.

"I told you, the chain's padlocked. The geeks can't get at him." T-Dog replied steadily. Arielle wiped away some of the sweat that was collecting at the back and base of her neck. She really wished that she had pulled her hair up before they had left. She lifted her long hair up in one hand, wiping the back of her neck and fanned herself with her hand. She turned her head to the side and opened her eyes to see Daryl staring intently at her, or to be more politically correct, down her top. She smiled widely, leaning forwards to him.

"Caught ya, pervert." She whispered low enough for only Daryl to hear. His eyes snapped up to her face, he smirked before reaching into his pocket, retrieving a rag for her wipe her face. She took it gingerly, giving the rag a thorough check.

"It's not covered in raccon blood or squirrel feces, is it?" She asked, receiving a scowl from him.

"I ain't that ignorant.' He snapped lightly, shaking his head. 'Squirrel feces." He muttered under his breath. Arielle chuckled quietly to herself, using the rag to wipe away some of the sweat that accumilated from the hot as hell van. She felt as though she was being slow cooked to death.

A few moments later, Glenn pulled up onto some railroad tracks before putting the van into park and turning the ignition off.

"We walk from here." He stated. As they climbed out the back, Rick circled around the rear of the van. His steps faltered upon spotting Arielle jumping out the back, giving her a quizzical look. She wasn't sure if anybody told him that she was coming with them.

"Didn't know we had a stowaway." He joked, sending her a half smile.

"Well, I was hoping on hitching a ride to Cancun for Spring Break but beggars can't be choosers." She shot back, putting a full smile on Rick's face.

Daryl, noticing their exchange, slowed his pace to match hers. He uncharistically wrapped a firm arm around her shoulders in front of the others, pulling Arielle tightly to his side and sent Rick one of his infamous glares. The air around them suddenly seemed to smell like pure testosterone to Arielle.

"Seriously? I can't talk to other men?" She asked, fighting down a laugh that was lodged in her throat.

"Nope, don't want ya realizin' that ya can do a helluva lot better and toss me out on my ass." Daryl replied quietly, glancing over Arielle's head to where Rick was walking next to Glenn. She shook her head at the silly notion and entwined her fingers with his.

"I just went through years of teenage love angst, waiting on you to 'smarten up' as you put it. I'm not getting rid of you anytime soon."

Daryl blushed, turning his head away from her eyesight, feeling slightly embarrassed.

"Besides, you 'let me' talk to other guys, like Jim, Dale and Glenn." She pointed out. Daryl scoffed, shaking his head.

"Jim I know doesn't see ya like that. Dale, hell, he's old as hell and probably can't get it up anyway." He stopped, dodging Arielle's flying slap.

"Daryl!"

"And the chinamen,' his eyes darted to Glenn as they resumed walking, then returned to her. 'He's about as sexually intimidatin' as a light post. I'm more worried about ya leavin' me for another girl maybe one of those blonde sisters than him." Arielle rolled her eyes before a wide smile broke out on her face. She stared up at the sky dreamily, sighing.

"Ahhh, reminds me of college and Cathy." She trailed off, letting the chum in the metaphorical water settle. She felt Daryl's pace slow dramatically, his arm loosening around her shoulders.

"Wait, what? Ya said that ya never had sex before." He questioned, his voice spiking noticably. She turned her eyes to meet his, confusion and disbelief were burning in the depths of that blueness.

"I said I never went to bed with anyone before. What Cathy and I shared wasn't in a bed." She stated in a matter of fact manner. Daryl had frozen in spot at her words, unable to fully process what she had said. Arielle paused, turning to him and smiled sadly.

"With her being a girl, it didn't feel so much like cheating on you, even though I thought you wanted nothing to do with me at the time." She confessed. A throat cleared behind her.

"I'm sorry to break up the sex life talk but can this wait? A little focus would be good for us all." Rick whispered harshly, clutching his Python tightly in his hand, the hammer pulled back already just in case.

Flushing deeply, Arielle quickly nodded while avoiding Rick's gaze. She pulled her bow from her shoulders and turned away from Daryl. He stepped forward quickly and grabbed her shoulder gently.

He moved his mouth to her ear. "I ain't mad at all but later, ya gotta fill me in." Arielle bit her bottom lip, trying to hide a smile.

"You find that hot?" She asked, staring up into his eyes. Daryl squinted, pretending to think. He lifted his hand up and held his index finger about an inch away from his thumb.

"Just a lil'."

"Dammit, guys!" Rick whispered loudly again, finally pulling Arielle and Daryl's focus back to the matter at hand.

Dodging quietly through back alleys, trying to go unnoticed as possible, the group finally made it to the department store they had so recently vacated. Climbing through the busted glass doors, Rick and Daryl led the front then Arielle and Glenn with T-Dog bringing up the rear, all keeping an eye open for walkers. Arielle moved between two racks of discount jeans, casually checking what was there, she was very low on pants that fit and hell, waste not want not. Glenn's light footsteps coming up behind her pulled her gaze from a particularly nice pair of low riders.

"We're not here to shop, you know." He whispered, moving quietly past her, shaking his head.

"I'm a girl in a department store, whose low on clothes and there's no way I can get busted for shoplifting. Well,' she paused, throwing a glance in Rick's direction, 'almost no way but I'm pretty sure Rick's not gonna throw me in his paddywagon. Besides, I think he's outta handcuffs." Glenn stared at her oddly, shaking his head once more.

"Only you, Arielle, would manage to make this terrifying experience humorous."

She shrugged her shoulders then pulled an arrow out of her quiver, placing it on her bow, just in case. Rick held a hand up, making everyone pause. He signalled Daryl over who crept through the shelves stealthily next to him, catching sight of the lone female walker shambling around, head bent down. Daryl moved forward, raising his crossbow, placing the dead woman in the crosshairs.

"Ya are one ugly skank." He said low, catching her attention. The walker's head snapped up just in time to receive a bolt in the forehead. Daryl retrieved his bolt and they quickly moved on, locating the staircase that led to the roof. Nervousness coursed through Arielle as they ran up the flights of stairs. Ignoring the painful stitch in her side, she powered on through the upwards climb. When they finally reached the top floor, Arielle was gasping for air, she felt every cigarette that she had smoked when she was younger burning in her aching lungs, thankful now that she kicked the habit her third year of medical school. Arielle seen T-Dog's feet rush past her, bolt cutters dangling in her field of vision. Some of the tension in her chest released upon spotting the chain wrapped around the handle, padlock still intact. The chain snapped and Daryl kicked the door outwards, yelling his brother's name. Arielle ran out onto the roof last, her eyes darting around, searching for Merle. Daryl's cries rang out as she reached the end of the platform.

"No!" He cried out, pacing around in an uneven circle. She followed her gaze, terrified of what she would see. There was a large pipe with one end of a set of handcuffs dangling in the breeze. It took her a moment for the scene to finally sink in, the dangling cuff covered in blood, the red droplets splattered along the roof, a saw blade laying next to a...

"Oh god..." She whimpered, her hands flying to her face to stifle her cry. She felt her stomach roll at the sight of Merle's right hand, sawed off at the wrist. Arielle fought back the tears that were threatening to burst forth. She couldn't believe what Merle had done. Why? Didn't he know that there was no way that Daryl and her would've left him here to die? Did he really have such little faith in them? The click of a gun's hammer brought her back to reality.

"I won't hesitate. I don't care if every walker in the city hears it." Rick stated, holding his Python to Daryl's temple. Daryl had his crossbow raised in T-Dog's face. He finally lowered his weapon, as did Rick, pushing the hammer back into place. Arielle released a breath that she didn't realize she was holding.

Daryl asked T-Dog if he had a do-rag which he pulled out of his back pocket. Daryl carefully placed his brother's remaining limb in the rag before securing it in Glenn's back pack, a look of disgust appearing on the young asian's face. They continued on, following the trail of blood, as if it was bread crumbs, in search of Merle. the trail lead on into some offices, the group taking out a few walkers along the way.

Arielle pulled her arrow out of the head of a walker, cleaning it on a rag that Daryl magically produced for her. She handed it back, glancing up into his face. She couldn't place the look that he was giving her.

"What's wrong?" She asked quietly, Daryl glanced down at the walker then back up at her.

"I just hate this, havin' ya so close to them." He whispered, nodding his head in the direction of the dead walker on the floor. She smiled sadly up at him, brushing her fingertips softly along his face then finally his lips.

"I'm sorry Daryl but this is the world we live in now, things have never been easy for us so why should they be now? No matter where we go or what we do, we're always gonna be in danger. You can't hide me away from the world. We just have to survive one day at a time."

Daryl grunted quietly, slightly nodding before his eyes locked intensely onto hers, momentarily knocking her silly. "Don't mean that I have to like it though."

She laughed loudly, wincing when she heard her voice echo throughout the office. Daryl stared down at her harshly.

"What? You think I'm out on a field trip here?" Arielle joked sarcastically. Daryl shook his head and grabbed her hand, leading them out into the hall that Rick, Glenn and T-Dog just emerged into. They followed the blood trail into what looked like a back kitchen, the smell of something burnt invading Arielle's nose, causing her to gag. Rick picked up an iron with something burnt covering it.

"What's that stuff?" Glenn questioned. Arielle had a pretty damn good idea as to what the 'stuff' in question was.

"Skin,' Rick answered, 'he cauterized the stump."

Arielle fought back another dry heave, moving away from the stove towards the back windows, desperate to escape the smell of burnt flesh. She knew it was odd with her medical training. Blood, vomit, piss, shit, you name it, it didn't bother her but for some unknown reason, burnt flesh did her in. As she reached the back of the kitchen, a loud crunch under her feet distracted her from the overpowering smell.

"Hey guys, I think I picked up Merle's trail."

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

"I really, really hate this plan. Have I said that yet?" Arielle asked, as she paced anxiously behind the dumpster after Glenn took off up the street. She tightened her grip on her bow, waiting for any walkers that might stumble across their location. Daryl looked back at her and smiled before turning back to the alley entrance.

"Yeah, three times. Wishin' ya stayed back at camp now?" He called back to her quietly, not wanting to attract unwanted attention. Arielle rolled her eyes then stepped around the dumpster, moving to Daryl's side. Leave it to him to toss that back at her.

"No. Where you go, I go. I meant I don't love the idea of Glenn running around out there like a pork chop with legs."

She sighed, shooting Daryl a look when he suddenly smirked. "More like pork fried rice." He added.

Arielle couldn't suppress the chuckle that escaped her mouth at his racist comment. "Wrong country again, Daryl. He's Korean."

"Whatever."

Before she could reply, the sound of footsteps coming from behind them startled her. They both whipped around, spotting a young latino boy creeping up on them. Daryl yelled to the boy, asking if he had seen Merle. The boy yelled something in what Arielle recognized as Spanish. Daryl ran forward, grabbing him and tossing him to the ground, trying to silence his yells. Daryl demanded again if he had seen Merle and the boy screamed out, well, she didn't know Spanish so she had no clue. She just knew that their loud voices were going to draw 'unwanted attention'. She yelled to Daryl to shut up but he didn't seem to hear her.

Arielle took one step forward before something hit her hard from behind, knocking her to the ground. She threw her hands out to break her fall but her head connected with the corner of the dumpster hard as she went down.

Arielle had no concept of how much time went by, everything was muffled and her head was swimming as if she was laying on a rocking boat at sea instead of the hot, hard cement pressing into her face. Forcing her eyes open, she was able to make out two guys beating on another. She forced her eyes to focus, the figure on the ground clearing slightly in her vision. It clicked in her head that it was Daryl they were beating on. Arielle pushed herself along the blistering cement, desperation pushing through the growing fogginess of her mind. She half crawled, half dragged herself a few feet to get to them. Lifting a hand up to the dumpster to try and pull herself up proved to be a bad idea. As soon as she was half off the ground, her vision, along with her stomach, rolled and she collapsed back to the hard pavement, skinning her arms and face on the rough surface. Her vision darkened around the corners even though she fought to keep her eyes open. Arielle heard some muffled shouting and shadows passing over her, confusing her more.

Something harshly smacked her face, bringing her vision slightly back into focus, Daryl's warbled voice echoing in her ears. "Elle! C'mon girl, stay awake!" Arielle locked eyes with him for a few seconds before everything went black.

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

A little shorter than usual but I am running out of steam, it's late. Leave a review please and let me know what you think of this one. Later!


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer:** I do not in any way, shape or form have any rights to The Walking Dead, AMC or any of the characters from that show, I'm only borrowing them for my own sick, twisted amusement.

**A/N: **Hey peeps, I'm still alive. I AM SO SORRY it took me so long to get this chapter out to you. With the summer time upon us, I am an outdoorsy girl, so this is my time of year, between fishing, hunting and camping, I have been failing in my duty as a writer and for that, I apologize to my ever diligent readers. I hope you can forgive me. It doesn't help that I have a coworker out on workers comp for an injury and we're all pulling extra shifts. Once again, I am sorry for the delay. I hope everyone enjoys this next one.

To my wonderful reviewers:

Noorey: I never understood why he took it either. It's not like they have any ice to keep it cold or a doctor to sew it back on. Anyway, thanks for your review hun.

pink champagne218: It bugs me out too when people write Merle off as public enemy number one. Sure, he's a giant racist butthead who needs a good kick in the ass but like Daryl, I think all of his internal problems stem from the horrible childhood he had. As cruel as he was to his brother, I think that in his own distorted way, he was trying to do what he could for Daryl. Once again, thanks so much for your input and I hope you like this next one.

Enjoy everyone!

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

The muffled sounds of people arguing welcomed Arielle as she slowly regained conciousness, not helping the extreme pounding within her skull. She groaned softly, bringing her hand to her head to try and rub the pain away. The voices abruptly stopped, followed by someone quickly moving across the room in her direction. She felt a warm hand softly caress her hair.

"Elle? Ya awake, can ya hear me, baby?" Daryl's voice softly whispering in her ear. Arielle stirred at the sound of his voice then slowly opened her eyes, squinting against the harsh sunlight pouring in through the open blinds. A shadow passed over her face, blocking the light from her eyes. She turned to look up into Daryl's concerned face, she couldn't help but smile stupidly at him.

"A girl could get use to this." She whispered, laying her hand upon his which was rubbing along her jawline. The concern that had been completely covered on his face was now quickly replaced with a look of pure confusion.

"What? Blackin' out in an alley crawlin' with walkers, leavin' me totally worried that ya were never gonna wake up?"

"No, waking up and the first thing I see is your face." She explained, wiping the semi-permanent scowl off his face. He smiled slyly at her.

"I think ya musta hit ya head pretty hard, talkin' sappy and shit." Daryl offered her a hand, slowly pulling her into a sitting position. Her vision tilted slightly but she took a few deep, calming breaths and closed her eyes, waiting on the dizziness to finally subside. Once the room stopped spinning, she gave her head a light shake. Opening her eyes, she took in her surroundings. They were no longer outside but back in one of the offices they had cleared out earlier that day.

"How'd we get away?" Daryl pulled himself up onto the desk as well, scooting closer to her. Even in light of their dire circumstances, her stomach did a small flip and a warm rush spread through her body as Daryl's arm wrapped around her back and his fingertips trailed softly along the skin on her arm.

"Well, after ya decided to take a nap, Rick and T-Dog came runnin' up the alley and chased the others off, not before they took Glenn with them. I threw ya up on my shoulder and we booked it the hell outta there before we became lunch." He paused when her eyes quickly darted across the room, searching desperately in vain for her friend who obviously was nowhere to be seen. She found Rick and T-Dog sitting at a desk across the room, talking intently with the latino boy that she recognized from the alley.

"Glenn? Is he.. do you think they..." Daryl firmly shook his head in denial.

"I don't think so. We got their man so maybe his douchebag friends will wanna make a deal." His voice was low, his eyes taking in her reaction to the news. She pulled her legs up to her chest, balling into herself as she always did when she didn't know how to cope with whatever was going on around her at the time.

"Thanks for saving me, I really mean that, didn't feel much like dying today but what if they don't want to exchange him? What about Glenn? What are we going to do? I mean, we don't know what their capable of. God knows what they could be doing to him right now, they could be torturing him..." She began to ramble and felt as though she were about to crack as the fear for Glenn and her distress over Merle took over her completely. Tremors coursed through her body and she couldn't stop them no matter how hard she tried. Arielle forced a few deep breath through her lungs which seemed pointless. Her eyes were burning and she couldn't absorbe the breaths, no matter how deeply the air pushed in and out of her lungs, it didn't feel like it was there at all. She wondered if this was what a panic attack truly felt like. Daryl jumped off the desk and stood in front of her, moving closely to her and grabbed her face, pulling her gaze roughly to his.

"Hey, cut it out, ya gettin' yaself worked up and ya need to be calm. If ya fall to pieces and the rest of us have to stay here and babysit ya, whose gonna go and save his skinny Chinese ass?" He asked firmly, trying to get her pissed in order to pull her out of whatever frenzied thinking she was dragging herself through.

Arielle didn't meet his eyes, her voice coming out in an automatronic manner. "Korean."

"Dammit, I don't care! He could be from fuckin' Mars for all I care! Ya need to pull it together and stiffen that upper lip, Elle. This is serious shit." He snapped, caring less and less about the inquiring gazes he was now receiving from the other side of the room. He couldn't handle having Arielle fall apart right now in the middle of this situation, in the middle of this god forsaken city. Daryl definitely wasn't going to say this to her face right now but if she didn't get her shit together, he had no problems with hog-tying her and dragging her back to camp. He was unwilling to take the chance on venturing out into the city with her being emotionally and mentally unstable, he couldn't even guess at what may happen.

Arielle bit firmly into her cheek, stifling the words that she truly wanted to yell at Daryl.

_**He's only trying to help, don't say anything you'll regret later.**_ The always annoyingly right voice in her head pleaded. She knew that she had to toughen herself back up or, well, she didn't know what would happen. There was just no way in Hell that she was going to leave Glenn behind, much like Merle. And as for Merle, they were gonna just have to see what happens. She wasn't estatic on the idea of roaming the streets of Atlanta, looking for Merle's ass because he got a little impatient.

She sighed loudly and stood up from the desk, pressing herself tightly against Daryl's warm, firm chest.

"You're right. I lost my head for a moment. I'm okay." She said, lightly placing her hand onto his chest, looking up into his eyes. Daryl stared down at her, unconvinced if she was actually ok.

"Maybe ya should stay here while we talk to these 'people'. It'll be safer for ya and probably them too." He suggested, instantly regretting his comment. Arielle's eyes lit on fire and her mouth pursed tightly.

"Not happening Daryl. I'm not getting left behind." She snapped, quickly stepping around him. He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around.

"Jesus Elle! Why do ya always have to do this? Why can't ya just for once listen to me and stop tryin' to kill me? Ya takin' years off my life with all this damn worryin'. I ain't gonna risk losin' ya."

Arielle pinched the bridge of her nose, shaking her head. The man clearly didn't get the point. You don't leave your crew hanging.

"Did you forget the talk we had earlier? You can't hide me from the world, Daryl. Can't avoid being constantly in the crosshairs."

"Don't mean that ya gotta always be throwin' yaself in the line of fire." Daryl said, shaking his head in frustration.

He threw his hands up. "Whatever, ya gonna be the death of me, girl." He gave her one last hard stare before walking over the others, not knowing what to say to her now. Arielle breathed deeply once then joined him. The said boy turned to look at her, scanning her up and down in a very unsettling way before smiling.

"Morning, chica."

Arielle rolled her eyes then turned to Rick. "So, you lost our Korean and picked up a Latino? He better suck at Poker like Glenn does."

~~~~~~~**TWD**~~~~~~~

I know it's very, very short but I PROMISE that I'll have the next one out either tonight or tomorrow morning. I just wanted to get this out there to let everyone one know that I wasn't kidnapped or dead. Believe me, I missed you guys and I can't wait to get your input, whether it be good or bad because of my absence. Hope ya'll are having a great summer!


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer:** I do not own or have any rights to The Walking Dead, AMC or any of it's characters. Nor do I have my main man, Mr. Daryl D-elicious! locked in my basement, I swear!

**A/N: **Hello everyone, I want to thank everyone for checking out my story, especially my new alert buddies, y'all know who you are. Anyway, I wanna get straight to the chase so I'll be saving my last chapter reviewers hollabacks for the next chapter. It's the least I can do being that I was a tool and let y'all hanging for so long. Enjoy!

Chapter Twelve:

**~~~~~~~TWD~~~~~~~**

The group left the office building once more under the directions of the latino boy, Miguel. They untied his hands before they left, Daryl letting him know that he had no qualms for giving him a crossbow bolt tattoo next to the pot leaf on his neck if the boy should try to flee. Arielle ducked her head and pretended to check her quiver to hide the wide smile that she wasn't able to cover up. At least she was able to stifle her snicker, the young boy tried to play it cool when the others were looking but once Daryl was within a five foot radius of him, Arielle was surprised that he wasn't constantly checking his pants for piss stains. The ragtag group head a few blocks before turning into what appeared to be mainly a warehouse district.

Miguel paused next to a brick wall and signalled to an opening in the broken chain link fence. Arielle glanced around him to the large brick ware house beyond. The whole situation didn't sit well with her. They would be closed in, no escape routes besides where they were about to enter through. She didn't know how many people were in there, Miguel wouldn't budge on that topic, and it didn't take a genius to surmise that they wouldn't be very welcoming either, survival of the fittest mode. They all stopped to get situated and come up with a game plan before continuing on. T-Dog left to position himself in a bird's eye (sniper basically) view over the meeting site on the roof of the adjacent building, just in case things went south. Daryl had originally suggested that Arielle take that position, arguing that she was a fairly decent enough shot and that he felt safer with her being up there but the proposal had been quickly deflated by the sharp glare that Arielle fixed upon him and then the others. She simply mouthed to Daryl, _'You go, I go'_, successfully ending the discussion.

Arielle had decided on exchanging her bow for one of the shotguns out of the bag. She took a deep breath, readying herself for whatever shit may or may not be about to go down. Daryl turned his gaze momentarily away from Miguel to Arielle. His eyes flitted over her tightly closed ones, the tense clench of her jaw, her fingers white knuckled as she clutched the shotgun tightly at her side as she leaned back against the brick wall to steady herself. He wanted nothing more than for her to stay here, where it was safe, safer at least but of course, Arielle was stubborn as hell and as always, anytime he tried to suggest a different course of action, she bucked him and did the exact opposite. He sometimes wondered how the little fiery redhead had gotten so deeply under his skin that he would actually _back down_ from getting into a fight with her. Dixons' don't back down from anything, ought to be his family's motto.

However, Daryl knew it was more than backing down from a fight. It was that he didn't want to fight with her to begin with. As much as the two of them bickered back and forth, that was who they were, that was just how they tended to communicate with each other. It wasn't like they were some unhealthy screaming couple throwing insults and curse words at each other in the middle of a store parking lot. They are the same deep down, both stubborn, hot headed and well, made for each other. Seeming almost to realize that he was thinking about her, Arielle's eyes popped open and immediately locked with his. She smiled shyly and gave him a lazy wink. Something inside of Daryl flared up, he couldn't place a name with the feeling but all he knew was that there was no way in hell that he was letting anything happen to her. His eyes darted back down to Miguel.

"One wrong move, ya get an arrow in the ass. Same goes for your _eses_, just so you know." Daryl stated threateningly to him, glaring down his nose at the boy.

"G's gonna take that arrow out of my ass and shove it up yours. Just so you know." He replied sarcastically.

Arielle rolled her eyes. "Can you two save the pissing contest for later? We have other things to worry about." She snapped.

"G?" Rick inquired while loading his gun.

"Guillermo, he's the man here." The boy confessed.

"Okay then. Let's go see Guillermo." Rick announced, cocking his shotgun. They climbed through the fence one by one.

Before Daryl went through, he turned to Arielle, looking as though he wanted to say something but not sure exactly what it was.

She smiled briefly. "Don't worry about it, I already know."

Giving her one last intense glance, he nodded once then turned and climbed through the fence. Arielle brought up the rear, staying close behind Daryl. Dodging around the side of an old abandoned refridgerator, Arielle jumped slightly as the old wooden doors to the building suddenly pulled open, a small hispanic man with a goatee stepped out.

The man, who she figured was G, eyed them suspiciously before turning to the boy. Arielle tightened her grip on the shotgun, eyeing the open doors, trying to get a head count of the waiting men inside as G questioned Miguel. Arielle's eyes locked on two men who quickly emerged from the doorway, brandishing their weapons.

"Hey, that's that vato right there. He shot me in the ass with an arrow." The bald, limping man pointed a gun in Daryl's direction. As he pulled the hammer of his gun back, Arielle felt that mental snap again, the one where you react without actually thinking, all that went through her head was that some asshole was aiming a gun at Daryl. She strided quickly in front of Daryl, putting herself between her man and the man with the gun.

"Don't even think about it, puto!" She spat, cocking her shotgun loudly and pointed it directly in the man's face. G raised a hand to his guy to back off then Arielle felt a hand grip her black tank top from behind, lightly pulling her back. Daryl shot her a dirty look as he carefully pulled her back and moved himself back in front of her.

"Ever hear of a poker face, Elle? Try it." He whispered as he stepped in front of her.

Arielle barely paid attention to the discussion between Rick and G, she focused intently on the men in front of them, keeping a close eye on all their movements. Rick's low gasp of surprise caught her attention. His head was turned upwards to the roof and she followed his gaze. Her stomach clenching tightly when she spotted Glenn, he was on the high roof with two men, his hands tied behind his back and his mouth was duct taped shut. She couldn't bite back the yell that left her mouth.

"Glenn!" She called out, unable to hold a straight poker face. She hated seeing him like this, held captive by a bunch of ruthless thugs. Rick shot her a quizzical look before turning back to G. Her gaze didn't leave Glenn's face, he was covered in sweat and looked absolutely terrified. She couldn't, wouldn't, leave him here. She fought against Daryl's grip on her arm as the men filed back into the warehouse, she wanted to get Glenn out of there right now. Who knew what they could be doing to him in there.

"We're going back for him right?" She demanded after they made it back to the office building. Rick dropped the bag of assorted guns onto the table, shifting through them.

"Them guns are worth more than gold. Gold won't protect ya family or put food on the table. Ya willin' to give that up for that kid?" Daryl asked Rick, pacing around. Arielle glared open mouthed at Daryl, she couldn't believe that he could so carelessly throw another person, Glenn no less, under the bus like that. That wasn't the man that she knew and loved.

"You son of a bitch.' She whispered, staring at Daryl, who quickly turned to her upon hearing her pain. 'I can't believe that you are that heartless. They're going to kill Glenn! We gotta do something. If you guys won't then I will!" She snapped, walking to the door. Daryl caught up with her in the hallway, grabbing her arm and spinning her around to face him. The anger on her face could've melted steel.

"What the fuck has gotten into ya?" He demanded, frustrated at her complete abandon of her own safety. Arielle avoided his eyes, focusing instead on a dirt spot on his shirt.

She replied in a low voice. "Glenn is my friend, I'm not going to leave him to die. Unlike you, I have a problem with sacrificing others."

Daryl winced at her harsh words. "I didn't say that I wouldn't go back for the chinaman. I was just givin' Rick some options, besides, the man strikes me as a goody two shoes so I don't see him leavin' him behind.' Daryl said, placing a hand on her cheek. 'So, stop snappin' at me every chance ya get and stop tryin' to get yaself killed."

Arielle laid her hand over his, gently pulling it away before turning away from him.

"Wait, where ya goin'?" He asked, panicking.

"Relax Daryl, just finding a bathroom. We may be killed and I don't wanna die with a full bladder." She called, heading down the hallway.

**~~~~~~~TWD~~~~~~~**

"I don't suppose askin' ya to change ya mind about this is gonna work, is it?" Daryl whispered to Arielle as they climbed through the fence, heading to G's hideout. Arielle tightened her grip on her shotgun and sent a glare to him before focusing her gaze back onto Miguel, the boy was walking ahead of them with his hands bound.

"Course not, stupid for even thinkin' it." Daryl muttered to himself as they approached the wood doors.

The doors opened loudly. Rick nodded once to everybody, his gaze landing on Arielle last. He smiled briefly at her before prodding Miguel in the back, moving him forward. They had all already wished each other luck, no one really wanting to think about the possibility of not leaving that warehouse alive. Arielle and Daryl had tightly embraced and shared a quick, passionate kiss in the back alley when no one was paying attention but no final words were exchanged. Neither wanting to imagine life without the other. Arielle braced herself, glancing once more to Daryl, only catching the back of his head as he walked in, then followed her group in, staying near the back again. Daryl, of course, tried hiding her behind him, blocking her as much as possible from the men.

Arielle couldn't concentrate on what was being said between Rick and G again. Her attention was entirely focused on keeping her hands from shaking violently and possibly dropping her shotgun. As much as her fight or flight mode was kicking into gear, her main worry was that Daryl was standing infront of her once again. If a single shot was fired in her direction, he would be the first to catch it and that tore her up worse than any bullet ever could. Flashes of what would be the inevitable outcome danced through her head, like snapshots of a grisly crime scene. All of them involving Daryl. She felt her resolve start to crack, she didn't care what happened to her but now that the time was here, Arielle couldn't focus on anything except Daryl, her mind was racing with possible ways of escape. Knowing that there was absolutely no chance of getting him out of here without her going with him, her conscience started screaming at her.

Could she really abandon T-Dog, Rick and Glenn when they needed her and Daryl most? She was no coward but the world just didn't seem to make sense without her short tempered, potty mouthed hunter in it. Arielle glanced behind her to the wooden doors, seeing that it was only blocked by three men. She contemplated the odds of taking them out after the gunfire began without Daryl and herself getting hurt in the process. There was just too many of them. They were going to die. Grief and undeniable heartache tore through Arielle as the realization washed over her, they were never getting out of there, none of them. Her thoughts momentarily flew to Lori and Carl, who just got Rick back and were going to lose him again. T-Dog and Glenn didn't really have anyone else on the outside but she knew the others would miss them as well. Her eyes trailed down Daryl's back taking him in for what she knew was to be the last time. He glanced quickly back to check on her and paused his check upon seeing the heartbreakingly distraught look on her face. Before he had the chance to do anything, a loud raspy voice called through the air.

An old woman made her way up to G and the limping bald man, whose name turned out to be Felipe. She was going on about someone was having an asthma attack and needed his medicine. Arielle's eyes shot to G, the man was trying to get the woman out of the room. Seizing the one chance at maybe living at least a few extra moments, Arielle rushed forward to only be greeted with a gun in the face, held by Felipe.

"Back up, puta, or you'll get a facial you don't want." He warned, pulling the hammer of the gun back. Arielle raised her hands up, pointing the shotgun into the air as well.

"It's cool, just be cool. I'm a doctor, I can help out. Take me to this man and I might be able to help out." She said slowly, not wanting to make anymore sudden movements. G stepped up to her and stared her down, taking her in completely.

"You for real? Are you actually a doctor?" He asked hesitantly.

She nodded. "Yep, don't carry my white coat and framed degree with me though."

G stared at her for a moment before nodding. "Take them up to the others, go." He told Felipe, who lowered his gun and nodded them on. Arielle took a few steps forward before Daryl quickly caught up with her, still glaring around suspiciously. They followed Felipe and the old woman out of the building through a yard then entered into another building that reminded Arielle a little of a hospital. Passing by the open doored rooms, she briefly glanced in, seeing other older people occupying the window-boarded rooms.

"When ya walked right up to that guy with the gun, I about shit my pants. Don't do that to me again." Daryl warned in a low whisper. She peered over to him out of the corner of her eyes, smiling and gave his hand a quick squeeze. They continued down the hallway which opened up into a large room the size of the gym at her old high school. She spotted a small group of people gathered around an older man in a wheel chair, Glen was among them. Not able to stop, Arielle ran across the room, throwing her arms around her friend's shoulders.

"What's this?" Rick questioned.

"Asthma attack. Couldn't catch his breath." Glenn replied, peeling Arielle off of him before glancing at Daryl uncomfortably. Arielle moved to the older man to help out however she could.

"Man. We though you were being eaten by dogs!" T-Dog exclaimed. Arielle followed Glenn's gaze to a small doggy bed, occupied by three fuzzy anklebiters. She snorted loudly, covering her mouth and her chuckle as well.

Arielle made a few rounds to see if she could help out with some of the sicker patients there before entering the large room where they first entered and found Glenn. She felt bad for the old people here, there wasn't really much that she could do besides give Felipe a few pointers and offer her expertise on trying different medications for some of their aliments. She made her way over to Glenn who was standing alone near a table in the middle of the room.

"Where's the others?" She asked.

"They went to have a little pow-wow with G." She nodded, taking a seat at the empty table. Glenn joined her.

"You scared the shit outta me." She whispered as she ran her hand along the edge of the worn plastic on the table.

"I didn't think anything scared the unshakable badass, Arielle Mason." He joked. She stared at him finally, taking in his young face.

"Only when people screw with the ones I care about." She admitted, causing a small smile to form on his face.

"Don't let Dixon hear that, I don't want to sleep with both eyes open. Besides, if it helps, I didn't plan on getting kidnapped today. Not high on my to-do list."

She raised an eyebrow. "You have a to-do list?"

"Yeah,' he ran his fingers along the table as if checking off a grocery list, 'mainly, find food. Don't get eaten, find a working X-Box that runs on batteries. That sort of stuff." He laughed at the look Arielle was giving him.

"Dork."

"Thanks for coming back for me by the way." Glenn said, staring intently out the boarded up windows.

"Didn't have a choice. You have the keys to the van and I am too lazy to hoof it back to camp." She said jokingly, enjoying the glare she received from him.

She smiled back at him and they fell into a comfortable silence, waiting on the others to return.

**~~~~~~~TWD~~~~~~~**

"God, why did I ever take up smoking?" Arielle gasped. They had been running steadily out of the city since their van 'mysteriously' disappeared from where they had left it parked. She had a sneaking suspicion that Merle may have been behind it. She prayed that they made it before Merle but she knew that was impossible since they were on foot. Hopefully Shane and the others could control him until they got there. Her sides were aching something terrible and her lungs were on fire.

"No one forced ya." Daryl's smartass reply came out steady which only served to piss her off even more. He had been smoking since he was a teen and he was barely breathing hard.

"Don't forget who contributed to my delinquency, Mr. Dixon." She said, holding back a hard cough. They were almost to the outskirts and it was eerily quiet. She figured that there would at least be some shouting by this point. A loud, female scream tore through the air. The group paused in surprise. The defeaning boom of a shotgun filled the air, along with more screams.

"Oh my god." Rick whispered before tearing off up the hill. Arielle sprinted after him, pushing the pain of running out of her mind while checking her pockets for extra shotgun shells. The sounds of loud groans reached her ears, confirming her worst fears as her body nearly froze up in paralyzing fear. Breaking through the trees, Arielle's steps faltered. They were everywhere. Dozens of walkers filled her vision, stalking towards the frightened group who were trying to reach the safety of the R.V.

"Elle, snap out of it!" Daryls voice rang through the air from somewhere on her left. She quickly shook her head, clearing her mind. She stepped over a body, not being able to tell if it was one of their own or a walker. Raising the shotgun, she braced herself for the jarring kick of the gun before firing, hitting one in the head that was coming at her. Arielle continued firing, pausing on to reload and take a brief second to scan the area for Daryl, who was lost to her sight amongst the chaos. Having run out of shells, Arielle dropped the shotgun and pulled her bow from around her back.

Reaching down for an arrow, Arielle was abruptly pulled off her feet, smacking face first into the dirt and blood that was slowly seeping into the ground. She glanced quickly over her shoulder to see a fallen walker, pulling roughly on her pant leg. She screamed loudly in a very girly fashion and kicked it in the face hard with her other foot, hearing a satisfying crunch. Arielle pulled her free leg up and yanked her knife free of its holder. Before the walker could retighten its grip on her jeans, she sat up quickly and slammed the knife as hard as she could into its forehead, the grip on her jeans instantly slacking.

Arielle scrambled clumsily to her feet. A hand clasped her shoulder, scaring her into movement. Still clutching her knife tightly, she spun around, knife in the air. Another hand shot out quickly and caught her wrist firmly. It took a few long seconds for her fight or flight adrenline rush to subside and she was finally able to see Daryl, standing in front of her and holding her knife wielding wrist away from his face. Dropping the knife, Arielle moved forward, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist. The sounds of cries reached her ears as she clung greedily to him, scared to let him go. She had enough close calls for one day. Daryl wrapped his arms around her shoulders, closing his eyes. He had been worried that he wouldn't get to her in time, he had seen the walker pull her to the ground and his heart had leapt into his throat. Thankfully, she had managed to get away unscathed.

The sound of a deep, heartbreaking wailing caught Arielle's exhausted attention. She slowly pulled away from his warm embrace and looked up the hill over his shoulder. Tracing the noise to the side of the old camper, Arielle's eyes skimmed over Andrea's form, hunched over, clutching something to her chest. Arielle squinted, trying to make out what she was hoving over.

"God, no!" Arielle quietly cried out, dropping to her knees once realizing what or who Andrea was crying over. Amy, covered in blood, lay lifelessly on the ground, never to move again, at least, not on her own accord. She brought her hands to her face and cried quietly for her fallen friend. Daryl squatted down next to her, rubbing small circles on her back, trying to soothe her. Arielle was stunned. She had one of her friend's life spared only to lose another. If there was a God, why? Why did he have this happen to Amy? Sweet Amy, who was so kind and gentle and adorable clueless, she didn't deserve to die, especially so violently. What had they, any of them, done to bring this kind of Hell upon themselves?

A strong arm wrapped around her waist and pulled the distraught Arielle to her feet. Daryl then sweeped her up into his arms and carried her to her tent.

When they entered, Daryl set her down on the sleeping bag and proceded to remove her boots for her, neither of them saying a word. It wasn't until Daryl moved to exit the tent did she finally pull out of her stupor.

"Don't,' she quickly snatched his hand. 'Stay with me, please."

Daryl's gaze roamed her face before darting to the tent flap. "They might need help." He whispered.

"Please Daryl, just for a little while. I don't wanna be alone." She begged. Daryl stared at her then his gaze softened slightly, he nodded in affirmation. Arielle stood and walked over to her bag of clothes. She pulled her shirt off, exposing her emerald green bra to Daryl, who quickly turned, giving her some privacy. Arielle chuckled humorlessly as she changed into a clean tank top and a pair of boy shorts. She climbed under the blankets as Daryl pulled his shirt off, exposing his back to her. Normally that action only would've made her heart pound a little faster. Right now, she just felt numb all over. Scooting over so he could climb in, Arielle laid her head on her pillow then reached behind her to grab his arm, pulling him tightly around her. Daryl buried his face into her hair, holding Arielle close in his arms as she cried herself into a dreamless, hard sleep.

**~~~~~~~TWD~~~~~~~**

BLAHHH! I hate that part. I actually really like Amy so writing that just sucks. Anyway, I hope you like this chapter and hit me up to let me know what ya think. Later!


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: **I do not own The Walking Dead, AMC or any of its amazing characters.

**A/N:** Once again, I am so sorry it took so long to get this out! Please don't throw rocks at me. I said before that summertime is a bad time for me because I can't stand to sit inside even in front of a computer for more than a few moments. I'm reading other stories for our delightfully delectable Daryl Dixon on and I've really been slacking on that because I can't stand to be inside in the summer. ACH! Anyway, I'm sorry and I will get the next one out asap, I might be needing to when you reach the end of this chappie! *wink*

**To my loving reviewers: **

LadyLector47: It's great to be back and thank you for the review, hope to hear from ya on this next one!

GatorGurl: I'm happy to hear that you discovered my quaint little story and like it. Thank you for the kind words on my OC. I work her over hard! It is really hard to make an OC believable, alot of them I've come across are either too badass to be believable or too soft to actually survive in that world. Hope you enjoy this chapter.

To my 'mysterious' guest: Wunderkind? You flatter me and I like! Thank you so much for your encouraging words and I got a kick out of coming up with Daryl's own personal view on Dale and Glenn as well. Enjoy the next one hun!

Everyone enjoy Chapter Thirteen!

Chapter Thirteen:

**~~~~~~~TWD~~~~~~~**

It wasn't until later that dreadful day that Arielle finally summoned up her gumption and climbed out of the tent that she had been hiding in. She couldn't stomach the thought of seeing her fellow group members laying on the ground, dead, missing so much of their former selves. Not again.

Daryl came to check on her every hour or so, just to make sure she was ok. Thankfully she didn't need to explain to him why should couldn't bare to be out there helping the others. After exiting her tent, the first person she came across was Rick, who was leaning heavily against the side of the camper. The hardened look upon his face speaking volumes, as if the world had come crashing down around him. She scanned the surrounding area, no sign of the horrid carnage of the previous night present. Even Amy's body was nowhere in sight.

"Hey there, Sheriff." Rick's eyes darted from the ground up to her, the sorrowful look wiping quickly from his visage.

"Arielle, hey. How you doing?" He asked, moving away from the R.V. towards her. A ghost of a smile hanging limply from his worn and tired face.

"About as good as anybody else I imagine, probably a helluva lot better than Andrea." Rick placed his hands on his hips, lowering his head.

"Yeah, dumb question I guess."

Arielle kicked the dirt at feet, staring intently at the ground since she wasn't able to make eye contact with her friend. She was afraid to see disappointment in his eyes or worse, from her lack of helpfulness.

"Hey, I'm sorry I didn't help out earlier..."

Rick waved a dismissive hand in her direction.

"No, it's fine. I understand. Daryl gave me a quick rundown of what happened at your previous camp. Nothing to apologize for." He replied.

The air between them hung thick, neither knowing what really to say in such a moment.

"I'm sorry for your losses, by the way." Rick said quickly, pulling a questioning look from her, 'About what happened with your siblings. I can't imagine what this feels like for you."

She simply nodded, unable to reply, not knowing once again what to say to the unnecessary apology.

"So, what did I miss? What now?" She asked.

Rick glanced quickly towards the desolate camper.

"Well, we burned the walkers and already buried our dead. Had to do it and well, we can't stay here, Arielle. It's not safe. The group's already discussed it and whoever wants to go, we're heading into Atlanta. To the C.D.C. in the morning. I figure that if the government's still standing, they'd protect it at all costs, might be our best bet. They may have protection, supplies, maybe even other survivors there. Also, Jim was bit in last night's attack, the only chance he may have might be there." Rick explained.

Arielle's heart clenched upon hearing of Jim's predictament. It was only getting worse and worse, soon, there would be nothing left that she cared about. The lonely mechanic was after all, at least an acquaintence of hers. Her mind floated momentarily to the long discussions she had with him over make and models of their favorite cars and ones that they'd like to own in the future, even though they knew that the possibility was growing bleaker and bleaker with every day that passed, mostly something they bullshited about to pass time.

"Arielle? I hate to ask but is there any chance that you could take a look at him and give us your point of view?" Rick asked tenatively.

"Sure, not a problem."

"Thanks for your help, Arielle. I appreciate it." Rick said. Something about the way he said it to her moved Arielle, he had always struck her as a get it done kinda guy but she felt as if he really stepped into his own since he arrived at the camp. Arielle stepped forward, giving his forearm a light squeeze, lingering.

"You're welcome. It's good to have you back, Rick. I think that you're exactly what this group needs. A strong, opinionated leader, I trust your judgement, always have." Rick stared wide-eyed at her before smiling. He patted her hand then she walked away to find Daryl.

After a few randomly placed hello's to the others, she finally located Daryl by the firepit next to Carol, the former taking a large swig of water before handing the canteen back to her. He was covered in sweat and dirt, looking distracted.

"There's my manly man." She called as she approached. Daryl tore his eyes away from the roaring fire, he stood up as she made her way over to him, looking unsurely at her.

"How ya doin'?" He pulled her hand out of her back jeans pocket and gave it a light squeeze.

"Fine, just couldn't be out here for the cleanup." She replied, glancing steathily around the area at the others who were busying themselves with the breaking down of camp.

"Yea, I get that. Ya hungry?" Arielle shook her head. She wasn't sure if she could hold anything down even if she was.

"Elle, ya need to eat. Ya haven't ate since yesterday mornin'. Can't go starvin' yaself. Ya gonna eat whether ya wanna or not." He replied testily, getting frustrated. He grabbed a clean bowl out of the makeshift dish crate, handing it to her. She conceded, partially.

"Ok, I'll eat but I wanna go see Jim before I do, check up on him, see if there's anything I can do." She said. Daryl's bright blue eyes sparked with annoyance before hardening. His eyes flitted up to the nearby camper then returned to stare daggers at her.

"I don't like the thought of ya bein' so close to him. Might turn any time now."

"Come on Daryl, it will be fine. I can handle myself." She patted his cheek lightly, her hand lingering a moment longer than was needed before turning and made her way to the R.V.

**~~~~~~~TWD~~~~~~~**

Arielle plopped on the ground outside of the camper a little harder than necessary. She felt a slight pain shoot up her side but pushed any thoughts of it away. She felt completely and utterly useless. So much for having a medical degree. She had entered the R.V., was greeted by a distress looking Dale and offered her help. Upon examining Jim, who was sweating bullets and had a fever that was ungodly high, her stomach began to churn violently. The large bite on his abdomen was swollen, discolored and was beginning to pus. Arielle had witnessed the same symptoms with her cousin, Bear and knew it was all a waiting game now. She purposely tried to keep her eyes down as she rang out a clean washcloth to place on his forehead and the back of his neck.

"I'm screwed, aren't I?" He had asked, seeing the grave expression on her face. She tried to screw a fake smile onto her face but to no avail.

"We don't know anything for sure, Jim. Might strike luck in Atlanta." She placed a cool compress to his forehead. Jim just turned away from her, closing his eyes and breathed deeply to only start coughing violently.

Knowing that cold compresses and keeping that wound clean was all they could do, Arielle took her leave, saying that she needed some fresh air.

She opened her eyes to see Shane, Rick and Lori approaching her, Lori carrying a bowl of what appeared to be some sort of stew. Arielle had a hard time stomaching the apprehensive stare that Rick was fixing on her, she always hated to be the bearer of bad news.

"So, what's the verdict, Doc?" Rick asked as Lori handed her the bowl. She snorted distastefully at the title, not feeling that she deserved it in the least. Thanking Lori, she ate a spoonful before answering.

"Unless they have some miracle cure at the C.D.C. that starts working immediately upon dosing, Jim doesn't have long. One day, tops."

Shane looked to Rick, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Figured as much."

Rick nodded as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Thanks anyway, Arielle. Well, we'll leave in the morning, hopefully he can hold out." Rick sighed. Shane glanced tensely at the camper before turning back to Rick.

"Rick, man, I think if it's going to be cutting it that close, we need to take precautionary steps with Jim. Someone needs to be watching him at all times. Arielle said a day tops but, truthfully, we don't know much about this. It could happen at any time." Shane finished, explaining what was clearly on all our minds.

"Agreed,' Rick stated, firmly. 'I'll take the first watch." He nodded once more to Arielle and Shane, gave Lori a small smile before entering the camper. Shane glanced once more at the two women, his dark gaze lingering on Lori a little longer than what was comfortable then headed off to his tent. Lori shook her head slightly, holding a hand out for Arielle's empty bowl. She had not realized how hungry she was until the food was in her mouth. She handed it to her, climbing to her feet.

"What else needs done around here towards leaving?" Arielle asked, wiping the dirt off the back of her pants. Lori smiled and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, leading them away to finishing packing up.

Arielle had spent the rest of the afternoon helping pack dishes, gathering up everyone's belongings and putting them into the vehicles, breaking down the now extra tents (this caused her to shiver uncomfortably, knowing that she had to go through her deceased campmates' stuff).

Right before supper, she assisted Daryl with moving Merle's bike up a ramp that they had thrown together with some planks of wood, into the back of his truck. Daryl pushed the bike up the ramp while she held the boards securely, making sure they didn't come loose and they would have to start all over.

"Um, Daryl?"

He looked up to her as she moved the boards aside and closed the tailgate.

"Yea?" He questioned as he secured the bike with some rope. She bit her lower lip, suddenly feeling very insecure and was unsure how to ask her question.

Ignoring the snakes slithering around in her stomach, she busied herself with wiping an imaginary speck of dirt off her hand while keeping her eyes downcast.

"If you want to, you can pack up your tent and stuff tonight. You can stay with me for the night. I figured it would make leaving in the morning easier if we just had mine to pack up. It was just a thought. If you don't want to, I'll understand. Just thought that you might..." Her words drifted off once she realized that she was rambling.

_**Snap out of it girl, you're nearly 30 years old and you're rambling like a girl asking a guy out to a school dance. **_She mentally yelled at herself.

"Elle, quit spacing out." Daryl playfully snapped at her, pulling her back to the moment. She laughed hesitantly.

"I promise I won't bite and I'll behave." She said playfully back at him. He fixed her with that sly smile that made her insides turn to melted butter.

"Take all the fun out of it why don't ya? Maybe I don't want to behave." He drawled, moving closer to her. He slid one strong arm around her waist while his other hand snaked up her shoulder, lightly caressing her bare arm with his fingertips on his ascent. Arielle shivered involuntarily and felt her skin burning where he touched her. Daryl was rarely like this when they were in sight of the others so she took full advantage of the moment. She quickly wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, burying her face into his neck. His hand buried itself in her hair, lightly kneeding the back of her neck. He moved his head, letting his lips trail along her temple before lightly kissing her forehead.

"So, is that a yes?" She whispered, pulling comfort from his warm embrace, even if it was hotter than hell outside. Daryl pulled away and cupped her face in his hands, staring intently into her eyes.

"Duh, girl!" He said before letting her go and moving past her, giving her ass a firm slap as he went. Arielle stared after him, momentarily dazed. She shook her head as she followed him towards the others at the firepit for dinner.

'Butthead.' She muttered quietly to herself, smiling. He glanced back at her, raising his hand out for her to take and fixed Arielle with that devious smile again, causing the same effect as last time with maybe more jello knees involved.

_**Okay, extremely sexy as hell butthead.**_

**~~~~~~~TWD~~~~~~~**

They had a light supper that night, no one was really in the mood for anything more than canned food. Arielle scanned the others, looking for Andrea but didn't see her. She asked Dale about her whereabouts. He said that she didn't feel hungry and had retired early that evening. Arielle really wanted to talk to her, let her know that she knew exactly how Andrea felt but didn't really know how to word it. She had been in her place before and it was a dark and scary place to be, especially if you were feeling alone.

Supper was a quiet one that night, no one spoke more than to ask for seconds. Glenn, obviously not able to take the thick fog of silence anymore, made a comment about the weather. Upon receiving the dumbfounded looks from everyone, he quickly returned to his dinner, his cheeks flaming red in embarrassment.

Arielle's eyes continually drifted to her right, Daryl was seated next to her, quietly eating his meal. For some reason that day, she was acutely aware of him. Every move he made, every deep breath he took. It felt like her school girl crushing days all over again. Arielle chalked it up to the near death experiences of yesterday that they all had been through. Daryl would occasionally feel her eyes on him, turning to meet her own. Each time their eyes met, a spark would shoot through her insides, basically like a jump start to the heart, filling her with excitement and she would feel her face flush. She hoped Daryl didn't notice her blushing, he may find it cute but she found it to be very off-putting.

After supper, Arielle approached Lori, needing her help.

"Lori, can you help me with something?" She asked.

"What's up?" Lori inquired.

"I really want to head down to the lake before it's completely dark and wash up. It's been forever since the last time I was able and I'm feeling really icky. Would you mind?" With the attack last night, Rick firmly stated that no one is to go off on their own for whatever reason, making Arielle's plan to bathe impossible. Lori glanced over to Rick, who overheard the question and nodded, turning his attention back to Carl.

"Sure, let me grab a weapon. Just in case." She added on, telling Arielle and also letting Rick know that they wouldn't be unprotected. Arielle walked over to Daryl's tent, letting herself in. He was packing up some of his clothes in a duffel bag.

"Hey, Lori's escorting me to the lake to keep an eye out so I can bathe."

Daryl raised an eyebrow at her.

"I would've taken ya down there." He offered, mischieviously. She ran a hand through his hair, laughing.

"I seriously think you would not be paying any attention for intruders, Mr. Dixon. We both know how easily distracted you can be." Daryl's eyes ran along her body then stood up off his sleeping bag and snaked his arms around her waist, pulling her closer to him.

"That ain't true. Depends on what's distractin' me and if I may say so, ya right. If I was to stand on that shore, knowin' that ya were behind me, naked, and dripping with water, I would be distracted. Can't promise I'd stay out of the water myself." He whispered low in her ear, sending shivers down her spine at his words. She moved her lips to his ear.

"Well, maybe you should come..." Daryl pulled away, his eyebrows reaching his hairline, completely taken back by her comment. She gave him a sexy smile.

"...might be the only way I can get you to take a bath." She smiled up at him innocently. His eyes narrowed down at her in mock anger.

"Think ya funny, don't ya?" She pulled away from him and lifted her fingers up.

"Just a little bit." She replied before turning and leaving the tent.

She met up with Lori back by the camper and in silence, they walked down to the lakeshore. Lori turned her back, giving Arielle some privacy and kept her eyes open for any unwanted visitors, dead or alive. Arielle quickly glanced around, checking that the coast was actually clear before she undressed, leaving her panties on just in case she did have a peeping tom. Carrying the waterproof plastic bag with her feminine care products, she wadded quickly through the water until it came to her waist.

"Lori?" She called out. Lori turned her head a few inches, indicating that she had heard her call.

"I wonder if Dale's perched up on his R.V. with those trusty old binoculars right now." She said, tilting her head back to wash the shampoo out of her hair. She heard Lori snort loudly.

"Dale's harmless so I don't think you have anything to worry about, sweetie." She replied, shaking her head in amusement.

"Uh, Lori, can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"How do you really feel about Atlanta?" Arielle inquired. Lori shuffled her feet around, kicking at a small pebble across the sand.

"I think Rick's right. It's not safe here anymore, never really was to begin with." She replied. There was an edge to her voice that gnawed at the back of Arielle's brain.

"I agree, but well, nevermind. Not important."

"What?"

Arielle fumbled, trying to figure out how to properly word her concern.

"Well, is Shane ok? He seems pretty, well, withdrawn today." She finally asked. Lori knew Shane well enough to know what was going on with him. A moment went by with no response from Lori. Arielle decided to shave since she desperately needed to, waiting for a response.

Lori's voice startled her a few moments later, causing her to nick her leg, she didn't think that Lori was going to answer her.

"I think it's last night's attack. It must've really got to him."

Arielle felt like it was more than that but judging on Lori's tone, she didn't push the matter. Finishing up, Arielle made her way back to the shore, grabbing her towel to dry off and quickly dressed.

"Done."

Lori turned to her. "Ready?" She nodded.

"Yea, thanks Lori, for everything. You're one of the only people I feel like I can really talk to and in this world, it's a precious thing to have."

Lori smiled hesitantly and nodded, turning to head back up.

Reaching camp, Lori bid her goodnight then headed to her tent. Arielle said goodnight to the remaining group before heading to her tent as well. She spotted Daryl tearing down his own tent, a few bags of his and Merle's things stacked in a nearby pile.

"You need any help?" She asked, running a hand through his sweat spiked hair.

"Nah, nearly done anyway.' He stood up, his eyes taking in her wet locks. 'Somebody shove ya in the lake?"

She laughed, stepping back as Daryl squatted down to fold up his tent. "Haha, wasn't a pack of walkers either this time. As I said earlier, you might want to take a page from my book. You're getting a little rough there, Honey Buns."

Daryl paused mid-tent fold.

"So, we at the cutesy name stage?"

She smiled down at him. "Nope, just trying to rile you up."

Daryl finished folding the tent up, a smile crossing his face. He stood up and moved over to her. Arielle leaned up and kissed him tenderly, lingering a moment. Daryl brought a hand up, wrapping his fingers in her hair and tried deepening the kiss. She pulled back, laughing low and bit her bottom lip.

"Hey now, hot stuff. I'll see you in a little bit. Hurry up out here." Daryl grinned at her deviously before kissing her forehead.

"I'll be in soon." He whispered then returned to finish up his packing.

Entering her tent, Arielle dropped her bag and clothes and plopped on her butt, pulling her legs to her chest. She took a few deep breaths, trying to calm her nerves.

_**You can do this, sack up already!**_

The plan that she had formulated this morning now seemed silly and amateur to her. Arielle had spent most of the morning arguing and debating with herself on a certain aspect of her and Daryl's relationship, to be blunt, the sex part. With last night's attack, the harsh reality of the current world they were in slapped her hard in the face. She could be dead at any moment and she didn't want to die before having Daryl intimately to herself.

_**You can do this!**_

After giving herself a long pep talk, Arielle pulled herself off the sleeping bag and ransacked her bag of clothes, trying to find something suitable. Settling on her tight red tank top and a pair of sleep shorts, Arielle quickly changed, brushed her now almost dry hair and climbed under the covers.

A thought occured to her and she leapt back out, going through her bag again. Finding the small dark green drawstring bag inside, she opened it and dumped the contents out onto her sleeping bag.

Spread out in front of her was the little bit of makeup and such that had been in her purse when she first fled for Atlanta. Grabbing a tube of lip gloss and some eye shadow, Arielle quickly applied the light make up. She even spritzed herself with a small sample bottle of perfume. Stashing the bag away, she climbed back into bed and waited, her heart hammering in her chest.

**~~~~~~~TWD~~~~~~~**

Enjoy that cliffhanger? I sure do. Just teasing, don't worry, 'its' coming, perverts! Hit me up a review and let me know what you think. Later!


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